The words on the back of the photograph stayed in my mind long after the officers left the house.
YOU WERE NEXT.
I kept seeing them whenever I closed my eyes. Not because I understood them, but because I didn't. My father had written them, or someone had written them in his handwriting, and either possibility frightened me.
Detective Reyes placed the photograph inside an evidence sleeve.
“We're going to examine the ink, the paper, everything.”
I nodded.
“What if my father wrote it?”
“Then we'll establish when.”
“And if he didn't?”
Reyes looked at me.
“Then we find out who did.”
Natalie sat beside my bed, twisting the strap of her purse around her fingers.
“You're thinking about the key,” she said.
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
She pulled the small key from her purse.
Reyes examined it beneath the room's bright light. It was old, brass-colored, with a narrow rectangular head. A strip of tape around the handle carried my father's handwriting.
HOME.
“I don't recognize it,” I said.
Natalie shook her head.
“Neither did I.”
Reyes turned it over.
“There may be a marking here.”
He angled it toward the light.
A tiny number had been stamped into the metal.
17.
“House number?” Natalie asked.
“Could be.”
I stared at the key.
My father had lived in the same house for twenty-seven years. There was no number seventeen anywhere on the property.
Then I remembered the garage.
There had been an old storage unit my father never opened in front of us. After his death, Marcus had insisted that we throw away most of the contents.
I had agreed.
At the time, I thought it was simply grief making me careless.
Now I wondered whether Marcus had been trying to erase something.
Reyes asked where my father's belongings had gone.
“Some were kept by Natalie,” I said. “Some went to storage.”
“Where?”
Natalie gave him the address.
Reyes wrote it down.
Then his phone rang.
He listened for several seconds.
“Don't touch anything,” he said.
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Someone entered the storage facility.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Last night.”
Natalie stood.
“Marcus?”
“We don't know.”
Reyes looked at the photograph again.
“I'm sending officers there.”
I stared at the bassinet beside me.
My daughter slept peacefully, unaware of any of it.
I touched her tiny hand.
For the first time, fear wasn't only about what had happened to me.
It was about what might happen to her.
That afternoon, Elena was brought into the hospital under police protection.
She looked nothing like the woman in the photograph.
She was thinner.
Older.
Her hair had been cut unevenly.
But her eyes were unmistakable.
She stopped when she saw me.
“You're his wife.”
I nodded.
Her gaze dropped toward my daughter.
Then she looked back at me.
“I wondered who would come after me.”
“What do you mean?”
She sat slowly.
“Rebecca said Marcus would eventually choose another woman.”
“Why?”
“Because he couldn't keep the first secret forever.”
I felt cold.
“What secret?”
Elena looked toward Reyes.
He nodded.
She reached into the pocket of her coat.
She removed a folded piece of paper.
“I kept this for six years.”
She handed it to me.
The handwriting was Rebecca's.
If Elena survives, find the daughter.
I stared at the sentence.
“What daughter?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Yours.”
I could not speak.
Rebecca had known about me.
Before I ever met Marcus.
Before my wedding.
Before my pregnancy.
“How?”
Elena whispered, “Your father.”
The room seemed to lose all sound.
“My father knew Rebecca?”
“He helped her.”
“Then why didn't she come to me?”
“Because Marcus was watching.”
I looked at Reyes.
He was already taking notes.
Elena continued.
“Your father discovered that Marcus had been moving money through accounts belonging to people who didn't exist. Rebecca found the financial trail. Your father found the people behind it.”
“Who?”
Elena shook her head.
“Not one person.”
She looked at the door.
“A network.”
The word sat heavily between us.
“Marcus was only one part of it.”
I thought about Daniel.
About the missing officer.
About the safe.
About the photograph.
“Daniel is involved.”
Elena nodded.
“He was.”
“Was?”
“He tried to leave.”
“And Marcus?”
“Marcus doesn't let people leave.”
I felt my hands tremble.
“Then why is Daniel helping us now?”
Elena looked at me.
“Because he knows what happens if Marcus gets the records.”
“What happens?”
“He kills everyone connected to them.”
Reyes closed his folder.
“We need to know where those records are.”
Elena looked at me.
“Your father hid them.”
“Where?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“But you said—”
“He told Rebecca that if anything happened, his daughter would know.”
I stared at her.
“I don't.”
Elena's expression softened.
“You do.”
She pointed toward my daughter.
“Your father didn't trust Marcus.”
My heart raced.
“Then why did he let me marry him?”
“He tried to stop you.”
I remembered.
My father's warnings.
His silence during our engagement.
The argument at Christmas.
The night he told me, “Some men don't become dangerous all at once.”
I had thought he was being unfair.
Marcus had stood behind me and smiled.
My father had looked terrified.
I had chosen Marcus anyway.
Elena whispered, “Your father knew you wouldn't believe him.”
My eyes filled.
“What happened to him?”
She looked down.
“He was killed.”
Reyes leaned forward.
“Who killed him?”
Elena shook her head.
“We never proved it.”
“But you suspect Marcus.”
“I don't suspect him.”
She looked directly at me.
“I saw Marcus leave your father's house that night.”
Everything inside me went still.
Reyes stood.
“When?”
“The night before your father died.”
I couldn't breathe.
My father hadn't died peacefully.
He hadn't simply collapsed.
Marcus had been there.
And I had never known.
Then the hospital door opened.
A uniformed officer stepped inside.
“Detective.”
Reyes turned.
The officer looked pale.
“We found something at the storage facility.”
“What?”
“A hidden compartment.”
Reyes's expression tightened.
“Inside?”
“A file.”
“What kind?”
The officer glanced at me.
“Medical records.”
My heart stopped.
“Whose?”
The officer hesitated.
“Yours.”
