Chapter 3: The Man Who Knew My Father
I didn't sleep that night.
I lay beside David in the dark and stared at the ceiling and said nothing, because I couldn't say what I was thinking.
Not yet.
Not until I was sure.
The man Mae described — angry, connected to my father, present the morning of the fire — there was only one person that description fit.
My father's business partner.
His oldest friend.
The man who had stood at the front of a church twenty-three years ago and wept at an empty coffin.
Uncle Gareth.
He wasn't my blood uncle.
He had just always been called that.
He had been in my life every year since the fire — at Christmas dinners, at my graduation, at my wedding.
He had walked me down the aisle when I had no one else to ask.
He had given a speech about my father that made the whole room cry.
I turned onto my side and looked at David's profile in the dark.
"David," I said quietly.
"How long have you suspected?"
He didn't pretend to be asleep.
"About three months," he said.
"I saw her near the bus station when I was coming back from a site visit.
Something made me stop.
I don't know what it was.
I just — stopped."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I wasn't sure.
And because I knew what it would mean if I was right."
I sat up.
"What does that mean?"
He turned to look at me.
"It means someone let you believe she was de@d, Natty.
For twenty-three years.
That doesn't happen by accident."
I got up before sunrise.
Mae was already awake, sitting in the armchair by the guest room window with her knees pulled to her chest, watching the garden go from black to grey.
"Did you sleep?" I asked.
"A little." She looked at me carefully.
"You didn't."
"No."
I sat on the edge of the bed across from her.
I had the photograph in my hand — the one from the wooden box.
I set it on the cushion between us.
"Mae, I need to ask you something and I need you to try.
Even if it hurts."
She looked at the photograph.
Her jaw tightened slightly.
"The man who came to the house that morning," I said.
"The one who was angry.
Can you remember anything else about him?
His voice?
What he was wearing?
Anything he touched?"
She was quiet for a long time.
"He had a ring," she said finally.
"A wide gold ring on his right hand.
And he smelled like — like cedar and something chemical.
Like a workshop."
My stomach dropped.
Gareth ran a timber and construction business.
He wore his father's gold signet ring on his right hand.
He always smelled faintly of the yard.
"He came inside the house," Mae continued, her voice going distant.
"He and the man who lived there — your father, I think — they argued in the kitchen.
I was in the hallway.
I wasn't supposed to hear."
"What were they arguing about?"
She pressed her fingers to her temple.
"Money.
And something else.
Papers.
Something that had been signed that shouldn't have been." She stopped.
"And then he said — he said if the papers ever came out, he would make sure everyone in that house disappeared."
The word landed like a stone in still water.
"Mae." My voice was barely above a whisper.
"Did he see you in the hallway?"
She looked at me.
Her eyes were steady and frightened at the same time.
"Yes," she said.
"He looked right at me.
And he smiled."
I stood up.
My hands were shaking.
I walked to the window and stood there with my back to her until I could breathe normally again.
Because if Gareth had seen her — if he had known she was a witness — then the fire hadn't been an accident.
And he had spent twenty-three years sitting at my table, calling me his girl, watching me grieve.
I pulled out my phone.
I needed to call someone I could trust before I did anything else.
Before Gareth had any reason to think I knew.
I found the number and pressed call.
It rang twice.
"Natty?" David's voice came from downstairs at the same moment.
Sharp.
Urgent.
"Come down here.
Now."
I ended the call before it connected.
I went to the top of the stairs.
David was standing in the foyer, holding his phone out toward me.
On the screen was a text message from an unknown number, sent at 5:47 that morning.
*She doesn't remember anything.
May you like
Keep it that way.
— G*
