Chapter 8: After Hours

We went back to the yard at eleven that night.

Poppy was asleep at Clark's sister's, and the crew had gone home.

The side gate was unlatched.

Somebody had left it that way for us.

"Who did this?" I whispered.

"Don't say a name," Clark said. "Not here."

He carried a flashlight, and I carried my father's brass key in my fist.

The old office stood at the back of the yard, up a flight of iron steps.

Its door had been painted shut and then scraped open again.

Inside it smelled of dust and lemon oil.

It was a plain room.

A steel desk, a wooden chair with a cushion worn flat, a calendar from the year my father died.

The Gaffneys had used it for storage.

There were boxes against the wall, stacked three high, stenciled with the family name.

But nobody had moved the desk.

I put the key into the bottom drawer, and it turned.

The drawer was almost empty.

A green ledger.

A ring of old keys.

A white envelope with one word on the front in my father's blocky hand.

Katie.

I sat down in the wooden chair.

The cushion gave under me in a shape that was not mine.

I held the envelope for a long time.

"Do you want me to go out?" Clark asked.

"No."

I said it before I thought.

"Stay."

He set the flashlight on the desk, so the beam lit the ceiling.

Then he leaned his back against the wall.

I slid my thumb under the flap.

The paper inside was lined yellow, torn from a legal pad.

Katie.

If you are reading this, you came on your own, and I'm glad.

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