My father.
My father, who had treated Lucas like the son he never had. My father, who had smiled on his deathbed as Lucas held my hand and swore to protect me forever.
Was every piece of my life built on a foundation of lies?
“Anne?” Grace’s frantic voice cut through the phone speaker. “What was in the package?”
“A key,” I whispered, staring at the written text. “And a message. It says… it says your sister is at an address in Palm Springs. And it tells me to ask Miriam what my father knew.”
Silence stretched over the line before Grace gasped. “Your father?”
“I’m calling Miriam,” I said, my voice hardening. “Right now.”
I hung up without waiting for a reply and dialed Miriam’s direct line. It rang twice before she picked up.
“Anne? It’s late. Is everything alright?”
“Miriam,” I said, skipping any prelude. “What did my father have to do with Laurel House?”
The line went dead silent.
Not the silence of a bad connection, but the heavy, suffocating silence of someone whose breath had just been stolen.
“Where did you hear that name?” Miriam’s voice had lost all its professional composure. It was barely a breath.
“Answer me, Miriam. Did my father know Caroline Harper? Did he know Lucas?”
A long, trembling sigh escaped her lips. “Anne… your father didn’t just know about Laurel House. He was the lead investigator on Caroline’s disappearance before he retired from the force.”
My knees nearly gave out. My father had been a police detective for twenty years before transitioning into private security, but he had rarely spoken about his old cases.
“He never closed it,” Miriam continued quietly. “It was the one case that haunted him. A woman vanishes from her home, leaving a six-year-old daughter and a teenage nephew behind. The nephew—Lucas—was the last person to see her alive.”
The walls of my hallway seemed to shrink.
“Lucas,” I choked out. “Lucas was her nephew?”
“He was raised by Caroline after his own parents died,” Miriam said. “Your father suspected Lucas knew far more about her disappearance than he let on, but there was never enough evidence. Years later, when Lucas suddenly reappeared in your life and started dating you, your father got terrified.”
“Terrified?” I swallowed hard. “Then why didn’t he stop the wedding? Why did he leave him in his will?!”
