Chapter 12
I woke Saturday morning thinking about the dinner I’d had with Preston the night before. I thought about his words and expressions and the moments when his confidence had slipped just enough to make me question some of the things he’d said.
I walked to the kitchen and began brewing a cup of coffee. As I waited for it to cool, I glanced out the window. The black sports car I saw in Preston’s driveway the night before was no longer there.
As I stood there, wondering where men like him went on a Saturday morning, my phone vibrated. I grabbed it from the counter and saw a text message from an unknown number.
One of the first things I’d done after returning home was to change my number. Only a handful of friends and family had it, which made the message all the more unsettling.
I opened the message and began to read.
I had a wonderful time last night. Thank you for making an otherwise ordinary Friday night much more interesting. I hope we can do it again soon. — Preston
I stared at the screen, wondering where he’d gotten my number.
I hadn’t given it to him.
Then again, men like Preston always seemed to find a way to get what they wanted.
For a moment I considered texting back to ask.
Then I stopped myself.
It wasn’t the text itself that disturbed me.
It was what it represented.
He had the advantage.
An advantage I knew he enjoyed.
I slipped my phone into my pocket and went upstairs to shower and get ready for the day.
A short time later, the doorbell rang.
A man in his early sixties wearing faded jeans, work boots, and a baseball cap embroidered with the logo of a local construction company smiled and extended his hand.
“Hello. You must be Olivia.”
“I am.”
“I’m Leonard.”
We shook hands.
He followed me inside, and I explained the projects I’d hired him to work on, starting with him fixing some section of warped wood flooring in my father’s former office.
For the next hour, I stayed out of his way while the sounds of construction echoed through the house.
A hammer.
A pry bar.
The whine of a saw.
And then it all stopped, and the house went silent.
I thought perhaps he’d decided to take a break. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps in the hallway, and then Leonard approached me with a look of concern on his face. “Miss Nightingale?”
“Is everything okay?”
“Would you mind coming here a second?”
I followed him to the office, my eyes coming to rest on several pieces of floorboard that were lined up against the wall. Leonard glanced back at me and then pointed toward the opening between two floor joists.
“When I started pulling up the damaged boards, I noticed these two were loose.” He crouched beside the opening. “Take a look at what I found beneath them.”
I crouched next to him.
Inside the narrow compartment was a green metal box about the size of a shoebox. The paint had chipped away in places, making it look as though the box had been there for several years.
“The box, have you opened it?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Didn’t think it was my place.” Leonard lifted the box and handed it to me. “I’ve been doing the same job for over thirty-five years. You find all kinds of strange things inside some of these older houses.”
“What sort of things?”
“Money. Jewelry. Love letters. You name it.” He tipped his head toward the box. “Whatever’s inside, someone went to a bit of trouble to make sure that box stayed hidden.”
I glanced back at the spot where the box had been found. When my father had used the room as his office, the loose floorboards would have been hidden beneath his desk and the red oriental rug that covered the floor.
It was the perfect hiding place.
I thanked Leonard for the discovery and carried the box to my room. For several minutes I just stared at it, worried about what I’d find when I opened it.
Questions flooded my mind.
Had my father hidden it?
Or had someone else?
There was only one way to find out …
The latch creaked as I lifted it.
Inside were several folded newspaper clippings tied together with a piece of faded string.
I untied the bundle.
The first article caught my attention.
LOCAL WOMAN STILL MISSING
Beneath the headline was a photograph of a smiling young woman.
Christy Meyers, twenty-four, disappeared while visiting her aunt over the summer. She was last seen leaving Mason’s Tavern just before midnight.
I continued reading.
Witnesses couldn’t say whether Christy had left the tavern alone that night or in the company of someone else. Police suspected foul play, but no arrests had ever been made, and her body was never found.
I picked up the next clipping. It was another photograph of a missing woman, and this time I recognized the name.
It was Lara, Estelle’s daughter.
The article was similar, and just like Christy, there had been no suspects in Lara’s disappearance either.
The third article featured yet another young woman. Her name was Melinda Bellamy, and she was twenty-seven when she went missing.
I laid the three articles side by side across my bed.
Three women.
Three disappearances in the same area.
All within the span of a couple of years.
Was it a coincidence?
Or something more?
Beneath the articles was a small spiral notebook, its cover yellowed with age. The moment I opened it, I recognized the handwriting.
It was my father’s.
A sudden thud echoed in my chest.
The first several pages were filled with the names of the three women in the articles, along with dates, locations, times, and a few notes.
The further I read, the more frantic the notes became.
Entire pages covered with questions.
Arrows connecting names.
Street names circled several times.
Ideas crossed out.
And the handwriting itself changed. It had been neater at the beginning, but was more hurried toward the end, as though he was desperate.
I turned another page and gasped, the book slipping through my fingers and slamming onto the floor. Hands shaking, I reached down and picked it up, my eyes locked on a name.
Preston Sinclair.
There were three question marks after his name and several circles around it.
No explanation.
No conclusion.
Just a name.
Why was his name been in my father’s notebook?
Flipping through the rest of the pages, they were all blank.
Had my father seen something, or figured something out, and confronted Preston? Was that the reason my mother said my father had been murdered?
I set the notebook down and reached back inside the box, my hand closing around a small metal canister. I lifted it into the light, exposing a roll of film. I turned it over in my hand, staring at it.
When my father was alive, photography was one of his favorite hobbies. One of his cameras had a powerful lens that allowed him to take pictures from hundreds of feet away.
If he’d hidden the other items in the box, there was only one reason he would have placed the roll of film with them. Whatever my father had seen, or spent his final weeks trying to understand, he may have photographed.
I tightened my grip on the canister, my thoughts fixed on the tiny strip of film hidden inside and the possibility that it might reveal whether my father’s death had been more than a tragic accident.