CHAPTER FIVE
The Name in the File
The rain had started before sunset, but by midnight it had become something else entirely.
It hammered against the roof with such force that Gila could barely hear her own thoughts.
She stood beside the window, watching the darkness swallow the road beyond the glass. Every few seconds, lightning opened the sky, revealing trees bending beneath the storm and sheets of water racing down the earth.
The room was warm, but she felt cold.
She had spent years believing that the past could be outrun.
She had been wrong.
Behind her, Thelma sat at the small table with the documents they had found earlier spread across its surface. She had read through them three times already.
She hadn't said much.
That frightened Gila more than anything.
"Thelma."
No answer.
Gila turned.
Thelma was staring at one particular page.
"What is it?"
Thelma slowly lifted her eyes.
"I found the name."
Gila's stomach tightened.
"What name?"
"The one we weren't supposed to find."
Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the trees.
Gila walked toward the table.
The document was old. The paper had yellowed around the edges, and portions of the writing were faded. But one name remained perfectly legible.
RYMUS.
Gila stopped breathing for a moment.
"No."
Thelma pushed the paper toward her.
"I thought the same thing."
"That's impossible."
"It shouldn't be possible."
Gila picked up the document.
Her fingers trembled.
The name wasn't merely written there. It appeared in several places. Beside dates. Beside locations. Beside transactions that had once seemed meaningless.
But now they formed a pattern.
A dangerous one.
"Where did you get this?"
"You know where."
Gila looked at her.
"The old records?"
Thelma nodded.
"The records everyone told us were incomplete."
Gila stared down at the pages.
For years, she had carried memories she had never been able to explain. Places she couldn't forget. Faces that appeared in her dreams. Conversations that seemed meaningless at the time but had returned to her with terrifying clarity.
She had always believed those memories belonged to a closed chapter.
Now she understood something.
The chapter had never closed.
Someone had simply hidden the final pages.
"How much does he know?" Gila whispered.
Thelma leaned back.
"That's the question I'm afraid to answer."
Gila placed the document on the table.
"Then let's answer it."
Thelma shook her head.
"You don't understand."
"Then make me understand."
"Rymus isn't just connected to what happened before."
Thelma paused.
"He may have been waiting for us to remember."
Silence filled the room.
The rain continued beating against the roof.
Gila felt something shift inside her.
Fear was still there.
But beneath it was something stronger.
Anger.
"If he has been watching us all this time," she said quietly, "then he made one mistake."
"What?"
"He assumed we would stay afraid."
Thelma looked at her for several seconds.
Then, for the first time that night, she smiled.
It wasn't a happy smile.
It was the smile of someone who had finally stopped running.
"Then we'd better find out what he wants."
A sudden sound came from outside.
Both women froze.
Footsteps.
Gila looked toward the window.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the yard.
Nothing.
Then came the sound again.
Closer.
Thelma stood.
"Did you lock the back door?"
"Yes."
The footsteps stopped.
Neither woman moved.
Gila reached slowly for the object beside her.
The sound came again.
A knock.
Three deliberate knocks against the front door.
Gila's heart slammed against her ribs.
Thelma whispered, "Don't open it."
Another three knocks.
Then a voice came through the storm.
"Gila."
She knew the voice.
Every part of her recognized it.
She looked at Thelma.
Thelma's face had gone pale.
"Who is it?" Gila asked, though she already knew.
The answer came quietly.
"Someone who knows what happened in the Amazon."
Gila's hand tightened.
The storm seemed to disappear.
There was only that voice.
And the past standing on the other side of the door.
"Tell me who you are," Gila said.
A pause.
Then:
"You already know."
The footsteps moved away.
Gila rushed to the door.
She opened it.
Nobody was there.
Only the rain.
Only darkness.
And something lying on the ground.
A photograph.
Gila bent down and picked it up.
The picture was old.
It showed several people standing beside a river.
Her eyes moved across the faces.
Then stopped.
She knew one of them.
Thelma came to stand beside her.
"What is it?"
Gila couldn't answer.
She handed her the photograph.
Thelma stared.
The color drained from her face.
Because standing in the background, partly hidden by the shoulder of another man, was someone they had both believed was dead.
Someone whose death had been the foundation of everything they thought they knew.
Thelma whispered the name.
Gila closed her eyes.
The past had finally come all the way home.
And this time, it had brought proof.