"Exactly. Which is why you're not going."
I agreed.
At least, I intended to.
But before I could leave for the station, my mother called.
Her voice was barely audible.
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Is Denise there?"
"No."
"Good. Listen to me. I found something in your father's old things."
"What?"
"A letter."
"What kind of letter?"
"I don't know. It was hidden inside the lining of his winter coat. I only found it because I was looking for the photograph you asked about."
I sat down.
"What does it say?"
"I haven't read all of it."
"Why not?"
"Because it has your name on it."
My throat tightened.
"Can you bring it to me?"
"I don't think that's safe."
"Mom, what is going on?"
She took a shaky breath.
"Your father came home the night before he disappeared. He was carrying a small brown bag. He told me that if anyone came asking about Elena, I should say I had never heard the name."
"Did he tell you why?"
"No. But he was terrified."
"What happened to the bag?"
"I don't know. He took it when he left."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"He said he was going to return something."
"Return what?"
"I don't know."
I closed my eyes.
"Mom, was there a key?"
She stopped breathing for a moment.
"How did you know?"
I stood up.
"What key?"
"Your father had an old key. He kept it in a little leather pouch. I remember because I asked him once what it opened."
"What did he say?"
"He told me it opened a door that should never have been built."
I glanced at the photograph.
The rabbit.
The key.
The old pumping station.
"Do you still have the pouch?"
"No."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know. Your father took it."
"Then what did you find in his coat?"
"A letter. And a small metal tag."
"What does the tag look like?"
"It's rectangular. There's a number stamped on it."
"What number?"
"Seventeen."
I felt a cold pressure spread through my chest.
Access point 17.
The maintenance key collected by Denise.
The location where my father might have hidden the evidence.
"Don't throw anything away," I told her. "Don't let anyone into the house."
"Someone has already been here."
My blood turned cold.
"What?"
"Last night. I heard the back door open. I thought it was you, but when I went downstairs, the kitchen window was open."
"Did you call the police?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because there was a note on the table."
"What did it say?"
She whispered the words.
"Stop looking for the man who came home."
The call ended.
I stood motionless, holding the phone against my ear.
My father had come home.
Not the night he disappeared.
Afterward.
At some point after the supposed accident, someone had seen him alive.
Or someone wanted my mother to believe that.
I called Bennett immediately.
He arrived at my house twenty minutes later. Two officers accompanied him. They checked the doors and windows, photographed the note my mother had found, and asked her to describe everything she remembered.
I stayed in the hallway while they searched.
When Bennett finally came out, he held a clear evidence bag.
Inside was the small metal tag.
17.
"Your mother gave it to me," he said.
"Can we use it to open access point seventeen?"
"Maybe. But I want to know what it belongs to first."
"Where is the letter?"
"She gave that to me too."
"Can I read it?"
He hesitated.
"After we document it."
I almost argued, but something in his expression stopped me.
He wasn't trying to keep the letter from me.
He was afraid of what it might contain.
"Did you find anything else?" I asked.
"Yes."
He showed me a photograph taken by one of the officers.
It was a muddy footprint beneath my mother's kitchen window.
The tread pattern was unusual: a series of narrow horizontal grooves, with a small triangular mark near the heel.
I recognized it.
I had seen the same pattern outside my own house the previous night.
The dark sedan.
The person who had been watching me.
"Someone followed us," I said.
"Or someone has been watching both properties for longer than we realized."
He put the photograph away.
"There's something I need to tell you. I checked the hospital records. Saint Agnes still has archived admission books from 1994. A man named Robert Hale was admitted on October seventh."