Chapter 1
“What else did you make my son keep quiet about?”
Duncan stayed bent against the console.
The wooden balls he had knocked loose were still rolling across the marble.
Claudia sat on the padded bench behind me, one hand pressed to her cheek.
Oscar remained in Rafe’s arms near the doorway.
Safe.
That came first.
I turned toward my son.
“Buddy.”
He looked at Duncan, not me.
That told me enough.
I crouched so we were level.
“You’re not in trouble.”
His fingers tightened around Rafe’s jacket.
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Then I corrected myself.
“I promise I won’t be angry with you for telling me the truth.”
Better.
Adults make too many impossible promises to children.
Oscar swallowed.
“He said if I talked, Aunt Claudia would go away.”
I looked at my sister.
Her face changed.
Interesting.
Duncan had not only frightened my son.
He used Claudia as leverage.
“What did you see?”
Oscar whispered:
“The room upstairs.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What room?”
He pointed toward the staircase.
“The one behind Grandpa’s picture.”
Silence.
There was no room behind my father’s portrait.
At least none I knew about.
Duncan straightened too quickly.
“There is no room.”
Oscar flinched.
I stood.
“Keep talking.”
My son’s voice shook.
“I saw Uncle Duncan open it.”
Claudia closed her eyes.
There.
She knew.
“What was inside?”
Oscar thought.
“Boxes.”
“What kind?”
“Black ones.”
Then:
“And Uncle Duncan was talking to men.”
My jaw tightened.
“What men?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Duncan finally spoke.
“He wandered where he shouldn’t.”
I turned toward him.
“You pushed my son down a staircase because he wandered?”
“He grabbed my sleeve.”
Oscar shouted:
“No!”
The room froze.
My son was crying now.
“He pushed me.”
I believed him.
Not blindly.
Because Duncan had already exposed himself with one sentence.
You promised to keep quiet.
Then Oscar whispered one more thing.
“He said if I remembered the red box, he’d make me fall again.”
Red box.
Claudia stopped breathing.
That was the first moment I understood this was larger than one hidden room.
May you like
Because my father had owned exactly one red box.
And it disappeared the night he died.
