I drove straight to Diane’s house, the disc burning a hole in my coat pocket.
She opened the door with that same tight smile she’d worn for twenty years.
“Daniel? What’s wrong? You look pale.”
“Get in the car, Diane. We’re going to my house. Now.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“You’ll see.”
“Get in the car, Diane.”
AdvertisementShe sat on my couch, hands folded, eyes darting. I pressed play on the laptop without a word.
Laura’s face filled the screen again. Diane’s composure cracked the second she heard her sister’s voice.
“Turn it off,” Diane whispered. “Please, Daniel, turn it off.”
“No. You’re going to watch every second.”
“I never wanted this. I swear to God, I never wanted anyone hurt.”
“Then what did you want, Diane? Twenty years. Twenty years you sat at my table.”
“You’re going to watch every second.”
She covered her face with both hands.
“The inheritance. Mom’s house, the land, all of it. Laura got everything and I got nothing, and I just… I pushed too hard.”
“You threatened her. You threatened my daughters.”
“I threatened a custody case, Daniel, that’s all. I never touched them. I would never—”
“Then why is she dead, Diane? Why?”
She looked up at me, and something in her face shifted. Something I’d never seen before.
“Laura got everything and I got nothing.”
“Daniel. She isn’t.”
The room tilted.
“What did you say?”
“Laura isn’t dead. She staged it. The crash, the shoe, all of it.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I swear on my life, I’m not.”
“Diane, don’t you dare—”
“Laura isn’t dead.”
“She called me three days before. She said she couldn’t fight me anymore, that she had to disappear to protect the girls. She begged me to keep quiet.”
“And you did.”
“I was terrified, Daniel! If I told you, you’d blame me. Everyone would blame me. And they’d be right.”
I gripped the back of the chair to stay standing.
“You let me grieve. You watched me bury an empty coffin. You held my sons while they cried for a mother who was alive.”
“I know.”
“She begged me to keep quiet.”
“You sat in my kitchen on Christmas. You hugged my boys. For twenty years.”
“I know what I did.”
She reached into her purse with shaking hands and pulled out an envelope, yellowed and creased.
“She wrote to me. Once. Two years after she left.”
“Give me that.”
I tore it open. Laura’s handwriting. A coastal town postmark I’d never heard of.
“She wrote to me. Once.”
Diane, please. Just give me time. The girls are safe. I’ll come home when I can. Don’t tell him yet. I need to be strong enough first.
My eyes blurred.
“She never came home, Diane.”
“I don’t know why. I waited, I kept waiting, and then too many years passed and I was too afraid to—”
“Where is this town?”
“Daniel—”
“The girls are safe.”
“Where?”
She told me.
I stared at the postmark, at the date, at the impossible curve of Laura’s handwriting.
Diane’s voice broke behind me.
“Laura was alive when she wrote this. I don’t know if she still is. But you deserve to find out.”
The drive to the coast takes six hours. None of us speak much.
“You deserve to find out.”
Ethan grips the steering wheel. Adam stares at the postmark on the envelope like it might disappear.
“Dad, what if it’s not her?” Adam finally asks.
“Then we come home,” I say. “But we have to know.”
“And if it is her?” Ethan glances at me.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
We pull up to a modest blue house with white shutters. My legs feel like water as I walk to the door.
“But we have to know.”
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