Chapter 9 - THE ADDRESS IN THE LETTER
The six-year-old letter contained an address.
Not a city I expected.
Not another country.
Not some distant place beyond reach.
It was an address in Vermont.
Mom read the letter twice before handing it to me.
David wrote that he was living under another name and had spent years believing contact would endanger us.
Then he admitted something harder to forgive.
By the time the danger had faded, he no longer knew how to come home.
He had watched my life from a distance through public information.
My college graduation announcement.
My first job.
A photograph from a charity race.
He knew things about me.
But I knew nothing about him.
I wanted to be furious.
Instead, I felt hollow.
At the bottom of the letter was one line:
If Claire ever wants answers, tell her I will give them without asking for forgiveness.
Mom folded it carefully.
“Do you think he’s still there?”
Detective Ruiz checked the address.
The property had been sold four years earlier.
But a forwarding record led to a small town outside Burlington.
My father might still be alive.
Mom looked at Julian.
“You knew.”
“I knew there was a possibility.”
“And you dated me anyway.”
His face tightened.
“I met you because I was trying to find out whether Martin was watching you.”
“That isn’t better.”
“I know.”
“When did this become real for you?”
Julian answered immediately.
“The night you beat me at miniature golf and accused me of cheating.”
Despite everything, Mom almost smiled.
He continued.
“I should have told you then. I should have told you long before dinner tonight. But every week I waited made the truth harder to say.”
Mom looked away.
I understood her anger.
But I also saw something else.
She still cared about him.
Detective Ruiz’s phone rang.
She stepped aside.
Thirty seconds later, she returned.
“Martin didn’t show up for work.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
Her phone buzzed again.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
She showed it to us.
It contained a photograph.
My father.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Alive.
Standing outside a small white house.
Taken that morning.
May you like
Underneath were five words:
STOP DIGGING OR HE DISAPPEARS AGAIN.
