“Why would he do that? What was the point of faking his own death?” Sam asks.
“Because nobody hides from a dead man,” I say. My eyes go wide. A memory snaps like a bolt of lightning behind my eyes, nearly making my knees buckle. “We need to go to my house.”
“Right now?” he asks.
“Yes. We need to go now,” I tell him.
As soon as Sam’s squad car pulls up in front of my house, I tumble out and run around the back of the house. Going into the small shed, I grab the axe my father used to use for firewood off the wall and run inside.
“What are you doing with that?” Sam asks.
“There’s a reason Jonah left here without me,” I say as I make my way through the house toward the attic stairs. “You talked about the storm that night. I love storms. I love to sit by the window and watch them. Always have.”
“I know you do,” he says.
“I didn’t watch that one. I remember hearing it, but I couldn’t see it. There was nowhere to look out and see the rain.”
“How is that?” he asks. “Every room in this house has windows.”
“Not every room,” I say and sprint up to the attic.
The lightbulb glows yellow down on the wooden floor. Shadows are moving on the wall from the boxes and furniture that have gradually filled the space. I find the spot on the wall where a hulking armoire used to sit. My hands grip the handle of the axe, rage creeping up my body and flowing into my hands. Rage at my uncle for what he did to my mother. Rage at my mother’s death and never seeing her face again. Rage at being followed and watched. Rage at Catch Me.
Rage at myself for allowing myself to be played like this.
But no more.
I let out a cry and swing it hard. The blade bites into the wall. I yank it back with every bit of strength I can gather and slam it again into the attic wall.
“Emma, what are you doing?” Sam demands, scrambling up the steps into the attic. “Put the axe down.”
“No!” I snap. “Enough secrets! Enough hiding. Enough of all of it. Pam told us there was a room up here.”
I wrench the blade out again, sending drywall and chips of the wallpaper scattering, and swirling dust into my eyes and mouth. I cover my cough and swing again, digging deeper. “I said there wasn’t. That I remember this place from when I was a little girl. I would remember a room.”
Another swing causes a large section of the wallpaper to come down and the wall to crack and break apart. One more reveals a door.
“Holy shit,” Sam gasps behind me. “Not a room that was hidden.”
“I couldn’t see the storm that night because Mama brought me up here. We hid in this room. I didn’t remember it from when I was younger because there wasn’t anything to remember about it. And then I blocked out that night. I blocked out being terrified because I knew somebody was trying to get into the house and hurt us. I was terrified when Dad ran out of the house after him. I didn’t know who it was. They never told me about Jonah. For obvious reasons now. Dad came home, and I heard the police come back. He said something about not seeing anything. He just heard the crash. I had no idea what he was talking about. Mama kept me in the bedroom after we came down from here. My grandparents showed up, and I spent the rest of the evening with my grandmother. I had no idea what happened. Only that there was a lot of crying that night,” I told him. “A big armoire used to sit against this wall. I always thought it was there to store my grandma’s old coats, not to hide something. That’s how I knew where to look. They must have boarded it up sometime after that night.”
“But why would they board up this room?” Sam asks. “What would be the point in sealing it up? They believed your uncle was dead, but that doesn’t mean they have to get rid of the hiding spot. Especially considering every other house on this street has this extra room. It’s not like it would stand out.”
I look at the door and the bits of wall surrounding it. Touching my fingertips to the drywall and plaster used to seal up the room, I realize sections of it are a different color than the rest.
“The room was sealed up twice,” I point out. “Look. Some of this is older than others. Somebody went into the room after it was already closed up.”
“Let’s find out what they were after,” he says, taking the axe from my hand.
I step back while Sam chips away at the rest of the wall to reveal the door completely. He sets the axe down, and I step up to the door, resting my hand on the knob. I have no idea what to expect on the other side. My heart shakes in my chest. My mind screams at me to just seal it back up and walk away. They sealed the room for a reason, and I shouldn’t disturb it. But I can’t. I’ve lived my entire life with gaps in my past. Black stretches where I should have days. Question marks where I should have memories. My mother’s death and my father’s disappearance made me feel like I would never fill those spaces. Now I have the chance to. I can’t turn my back on it. Whatever is inside is another piece toward understanding it all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“It’s like they took his entire life and shoved it in here,” I muse. “They literally sealed him up. Made him disappear.”
Sam and I have stepped into the small room off the attic. We’re staring at shelves and boxes of… memorabilia, for lack of a better word. Not
