Chapter 4 - THE LAST VOICEMAIL
Clarissa locked herself and Dustin inside the upstairs bathroom.
Parker stood outside the door.
“Open this door.”
Dustin sat on the edge of the bathtub, pressing both hands over his ears.
Clarissa crouched in front of him.
“Look at me.”
He slowly raised his eyes.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“Is Dad mad at me?”
The word Dad hurt.
“He is angry because he is hiding something.”
“Grandpa told me not to tell.”
“Tell what?”
Dustin looked toward the door.
Parker struck it with his palm.
“Clarissa, this has gone far enough.”
She turned on the shower to cover their voices.
Then she took out her phone and played her father’s last voicemail.
Call me when you can, sweetheart. There is something important I need to explain.
She listened twice.
On the third time, she noticed a faint sound beneath his voice.
A train horn.
Her father had supposedly called from his lake house, twenty miles from the nearest railway.
Clarissa opened the message details.
The voicemail had been left at 9:47 p.m.
Police estimated the accident occurred shortly after midnight.
She searched through old photographs on her phone until she found one taken the day before his death.
Her father stood beside a brick building with train tracks behind it.
The photograph had been sent without explanation.
Clarissa had assumed he was visiting a client.
She zoomed in.
A sign on the building read HALE STORAGE FACILITY 12.
Victor Hale.
Parker’s employer.
The pieces did not yet form a complete picture, but they had begun to touch.
“Dustin,” she said gently, “what did Grandpa tell you?”
The child stared at his shoes.
“He said if the bad men came, I should find the red door.”
“What bad men?”
“The ones who wanted his book.”
“What book?”
Dustin shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Grandpa show you the red door?”
“He took me to the lake house.”
Clarissa’s chest tightened.
“When?”
“When you were in the hospital.”
The forged documents had been notarized while she was in surgery.
Dustin had been six at the time.
Parker claimed he had stayed beside Clarissa all day, while Alana watched Dustin.
But Dustin was saying her father had taken him to the lake house.
Her father had been dead for nearly three years by then.
Clarissa held his shoulders.
“Do you mean Grandpa Thomas?”
Dustin nodded.
“That’s impossible.”
“He had a beard.”
Her father had always been clean-shaven.
“Did he tell you his name?”
“He said I had to call him Grandpa because it was safer.”
Clarissa slowly released him.
The shower continued running.
Steam covered the mirror.
Dustin was describing someone else.
Someone connected to her father.
“What did this man look like?”
“He had a scar here.”
Dustin touched the side of his neck.
Clarissa remembered a man from her childhood.
Nathan Cole, her father’s attorney, had a burn scar running from his left ear to his collar.
“Did he give you the wooden box?”
“Yes.”
“And the key?”
Dustin nodded.
“Where is it?”
He leaned close.
“In Mr. Rabbit.”
Mr. Rabbit was the stuffed animal Dustin carried everywhere when he was younger. After the seams tore, Clarissa stored it in a cedar chest in the attic.
Parker pounded on the door again.
“I’m calling the police.”
Clarissa turned off the shower.
“Do it.”
She opened the door so suddenly that Parker stepped back.
“We are leaving,” she said.
He blocked the hallway.
“No.”
Clarissa lifted her phone.
“The call is connected to emergency services.”
It was not, but Parker could not know that.
He moved aside.
Clarissa took Dustin’s hand and walked toward the stairs.
Alana stood below with her arms folded.
“You cannot take that boy.”
Clarissa stopped.
“Watch me.”
“The guardianship papers say otherwise.”
“What guardianship papers?”
Alana smiled.
“The ones your father signed.”
Clarissa descended one step at a time.
“My father would never give Parker control over Dustin.”
“Not Parker,” Alana said. “Me.”
Clarissa reached the bottom step.
Alana pulled a folded document from her purse.
It contained Thomas Vale’s signature.
The document stated that if Clarissa were found mentally or financially incapable, temporary guardianship of any minor child would pass to Alana Mercer.
The witness signature belonged to Nathan Cole.
Clarissa looked at the date.
It was signed six months before her father’s death.
“You forged this too.”
Alana’s smile remained.
“Prove it.”
Dustin squeezed Clarissa’s hand.
At that moment, Parker’s phone rang again.
He answered.
Victor Hale’s voice was loud enough for Clarissa to hear.
“Did you find the key?”
Parker turned away, but it was too late.
Clarissa had her answer.
May you like
They were all searching for the same thing.
And the key was hidden inside a stuffed rabbit in the attic.
