Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE DANIEL NEVER LEFT
Southbridge looked smaller than I remembered.
The streets had not changed much. Same narrow sidewalks. Same crooked sycamore trees lifting concrete at the roots. Same corner store with faded beer signs in the window.
But childhood places do strange things when you return as an adult.
They shrink.
And somehow the memories get bigger.
Vincent’s SUV stopped across from the little blue house where Daniel and I had grown up.
Someone else owned it now.
A bicycle leaned against the porch.
Plastic pumpkins sat beneath the front windows even though Halloween was still three weeks away.
I stared at the upstairs bedroom that had once been mine.
“You don’t have to go in,” Vincent said.
I looked at him.
“That would make this a very long drive for nothing.”
He didn’t smile.
Marco sat in the front passenger seat, scanning mirrors.
After the shooting at Westhaven, nobody was taking chances.
Detective Holloway had survived.
The bullet had passed through his shoulder.
He was at Saint Matthew’s under guard, which was the only hospital Vincent trusted enough not to send me into a panic.
Dr. Kessler had stopped answering calls.
Isabella was still confined at the Romano estate.
And somewhere between the storage unit and Southbridge, I had realized I was exhausted enough to stop pretending I wasn’t terrified.
Vincent noticed everything.
That was becoming a problem.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m angry.”
“You shake when you’re angry?”
“I contain multitudes.”
Marco looked out the window so we wouldn’t see him grin.
Vincent sighed.
“Stay close.”
“That sounded like an order.”
“It was.”
I glared at him.
He opened the door.
The current owners were a young couple named Hernandez.
Vincent’s attorney had called them at four in the morning with a story about an old family document hidden in the property.
I expected resistance.
Instead, Mr. Hernandez met us at the door holding a baseball bat and looking deeply unimpressed with rich men.
“My wife and kids are asleep.”
Vincent nodded.
“We’ll be quiet.”
“You said twenty minutes.”
“We’ll try.”
Mr. Hernandez looked at me.
“You lived here?”
“Yes.”
His expression softened.
“My daughter has the upstairs front room.”
“That was mine.”
“She painted it purple.”
“I always wanted purple.”
He lowered the bat.
“Come on.”
Walking inside nearly broke me.
The wallpaper was gone.
The old brown carpet had been replaced.
The kitchen where Daniel once set a dish towel on fire trying to make pancakes had new cabinets.
But the bones were the same.
The little bend in the hallway.
The loose stair tread.
The window above the sink.
I touched the doorway to the basement.
Daniel and I had measured our height there every birthday.
The pencil marks were painted over.
Still, I could see them in my mind.
Vincent stood behind me.
“We can leave.”
“No.”
I opened the basement door.
Daniel had always hidden things downstairs.
Birthday gifts.
Beer when he was seventeen.
A stray dog our mother said we couldn’t keep.
He believed the basement belonged to him because I was afraid of spiders.
He was right.
I hated spiders.
I hated this basement more.
Mr. Hernandez turned on the lights.
The room had been remodeled into a small gym.
“Where would he hide something?” Vincent asked.
I looked around.
Not behind walls.
Daniel was clever, but not patient.
He would want access.
Something nobody else would touch.
Then I saw the old furnace vent near the floor.
Still there.
Painted white.
I crossed the room.
“Daniel used to hide cigarettes in this.”
Mr. Hernandez blinked.
“I’ve vacuumed around that for two years.”
I crouched.
The screws were newer than the vent.
My pulse jumped.
“Marco.”
He knelt beside me and removed the cover.
Behind it was dust.
Insulation.
And a plastic freezer bag.
My breath stopped.
I pulled it out.
Inside was a cheap prepaid phone.
A key.
And one photograph.
Daniel and Elena Romano stood beside a construction trailer.
Not together in any intimate way.
They were arguing.
Daniel’s hand was raised.
Elena held a folder against her chest.
On the back, Daniel had written:
SHE KNOWS.
Vincent took the photograph.
His jaw tightened.
“Elena never told me she met Daniel.”
“Maybe she didn’t trust you yet.”
The words came out before I could soften them.
His eyes lifted.
I regretted it immediately.
But he only said, “Daniel’s note suggested he didn’t either.”
Mr. Hernandez gave us privacy by going upstairs.
Marco powered on the prepaid phone.
The battery was dead.
He connected a portable charger.
The screen came alive.
No service.
Six saved messages.
Two photos.
One audio file.
My hands went cold.
The contact list contained only three names.
E.
KESSLER.
LILY.
I stared.
“My number?”
Marco opened the contact.
It was my old cell phone.
The one I used before Daniel died.
“He meant to call you,” Vincent said.
“Maybe he did.”
“No outgoing calls to your number.”
I swallowed.
Marco opened the messages with E.
E: You were right about the invoices.
D: I told you.
E: Vincent cannot know yet.
D: He deserves to know.
E: Not until I know who inside his office signed them.
D: You think it’s family?
E: I know it is.
My skin prickled.
Vincent read over Marco’s shoulder.
His face became harder with each line.
The final message from Elena came one day before her death.
E: If something happens to me, the reserve bottles are the map.
I looked at Vincent.
“The wine.”
He nodded slowly.
“Six bottles.”
“Six locations?”
“Maybe.”
Marco searched the phone.
One unsent draft from Daniel remained.
To Lily.
Lil, if you ever get this, I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. Mom’s old recipe box. Blue card. Don’t bring it to police. Find—
The message stopped.
“Find who?” I whispered.
Nothing followed.
The blue card.
My mother’s recipe box had been sold with the house contents after her death.
I looked toward the stairs.
“Mr. Hernandez!”
He came down fast.
“What?”
“When you bought the house, did the previous owner leave kitchen stuff?”
“Some.”
“A metal recipe box. Yellow flowers.”
He frowned.
“My wife uses it.”
I nearly ran upstairs.
Mrs. Hernandez appeared in a robe, confused but kind.
She opened a cabinet and handed me the box.
There it was.
My mother’s handwriting.
Meatloaf.
Chicken soup.
Apple pie.
And one blue index card.
No recipe.
Just numbers.
Six sets.
Marco photographed it.
Vincent stared.
“Coordinates.”
My heart began to pound.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He entered the first pair into a map app.
Black Pine Ridge.
Crash site.
Second.
Romano estate.
Third.
Saint Gabriel’s Hospital.
Fourth.
The old Romano warehouse.
Fifth.
A marina on Lake Mercer.
Sixth.
A cemetery.
I looked at him.
“What cemetery?”
He zoomed in.
“Holy Cross.”
Marco’s expression changed.
“Anthony is buried there.”
Silence.
The recipe card trembled in my hand.
Elena had turned six wine bottles into a map.
Daniel had hidden the key to the map in my childhood home.
And Isabella had tried to serve one of those bottles three years later.
Vincent looked at me.
“We go to the cemetery first.”
“Why?”
“Because if Anthony’s grave is part of this, I want to know what is actually inside it.”
We left Southbridge before sunrise.
By six-thirty, the sky was turning gray over Holy Cross Cemetery.
Vincent’s family mausoleum sat on the eastern hill.
Marble.
Iron doors.
Romanos carved into stone like permanence could be purchased.
Anthony’s crypt was sealed.
Marco had arranged for a cemetery administrator to meet us.
The man looked ill when Vincent told him to open it.
“Mr. Romano, we need legal authorization.”
Vincent handed him paperwork.
Apparently rich men could arrange exhumations before breakfast.
The seal was broken.
The casket slid outward.
My stomach turned.
Vincent stood near the wall.
He looked like a man forcing himself not to be a son, not to be a brother, not to be anything except someone who needed an answer.
The funeral director opened the casket.
Inside was a body.
Or what remained.
For one second, relief moved through Vincent’s face.
Then Marco leaned closer.
“Wait.”
He pointed toward the left hand.
A gold wedding ring.
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Anthony never married.”
The funeral director looked confused.
Marco checked the dental chart provided with burial records.
Then the body.
“Wrong molar.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
“What?”
“This man has a crown on the upper left.”
He held up the chart.
“Anthony’s record says upper right.”
I stared at the casket.
A stranger had been buried under Anthony Romano’s name.
Vincent stepped backward.
His face lost all color.
“Close it.”
“Vincent—”
“Close it.”
The lid shut.
For the first time since I met him, Vincent looked afraid.
Not angry.
Afraid.
His dead brother was alive.
Maybe.
And somebody had gone to extraordinary lengths to make the world believe otherwise.
As we walked back toward the SUV, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I stopped.
Vincent saw my face.
“What?”
A new text.
YOU KEEP OPENING GRAVES.
A second message appeared.
SOON SOMEONE WILL OPEN YOURS.
Attached was a photograph.
Not of me.
Of Isabella.
She was sitting in her locked guest room at the Romano estate.
Behind her, reflected in the mirror, stood a man.
Dark hair.
A familiar face.
Anthony Romano.
May you like
Alive.
Holding a gun to her head.
