The receptionist searched the computer.
“No Ryan Mercer.”
My heart sank.
Then an older nurse walking behind the desk stopped.
“Ryan?”
I turned.
She studied me.
“You look like him.”
My knees nearly failed again.
“You knew him?”
The nurse glanced around.
“He wasn’t a patient.”
“What was he?”
“Maintenance.”
Christopher leaned forward.
“When?”
“Until about six months ago.”
Alive.
Ryan had been alive six months earlier.
I began crying immediately.
“Where did he go?”
The nurse hesitated.
“He left suddenly.”
“Did he say why?”
She lowered her voice.
“He said someone had found him.”
Christopher and I exchanged a look.
“Did he leave anything?”
The nurse stared at me.
Then she said, “Wait.”
She disappeared.
Ten minutes later, she returned carrying an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Rachel.
Ryan’s handwriting.
I couldn’t open it.
Christopher watched me.
“Do you want me to?”
I shook my head.
I tore the envelope.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
Rach,
If you ever read this, then Christopher kept his promise.
I am sorry.
I am sorry for every birthday, every Christmas, every moment you believed I was dead.
I wanted to come home more times than I can count.
But the men looking for me knew about you.
Staying dead was the only way I knew to keep you alive.
If Christopher is with you, trust him.
He made mistakes.
So did I.
But he is not his father.
And if Marcus is still alive, do not underestimate him.
There is something hidden beneath the floorboards in Grandma’s old house.
You’ll know the room.
I love you.
Ryan.
I sank into a chair.
Christopher remained silent.
Grandma’s old house had been abandoned for years.
We drove back to Chicago the next morning.
By sunset, we stood inside the decaying house where Ryan and I had grown up.
Dust covered everything.
The roof leaked.
Wallpaper peeled from the walls.
“You’ll know the room,” I whispered.
Then I knew.
Our childhood bedroom.
Ryan and I had shared it until he was sixteen.
I went to the corner near the radiator.
When we were children, Ryan had hidden comic books beneath a loose floorboard there.
Christopher watched as I pried it up.
Beneath the floor was a metal box.
Inside were flash drives.
Documents.
Photographs.
And one small prepaid phone.
Christopher stared at it.
