My phone buzzed again. My fingers shook as I pulled it out.
Three messages from David, my husband of five years. The man I had shared a bed with last night while he held me through my grief.
Emma.
Where are you?
Come home now.
Three words.
No honey. No sweetheart. No I’m worried about you. Just a command, cold and flat, like he was giving orders to someone expected to obey.
I looked back at the letter. The last line hit hardest of all.
They have your mother. I will explain everything. I love you, my girl. Go to Unit 20 now.
I stared at one word and frowned through the tears.
Wait.
In one sentence Dad had written son, then corrected himself so heavily the ink scarred the paper.
But I was his daughter.
Was this even meant for me?
I looked again at the envelope. Emma, written clearly in his hand.
No. It was meant for me.
The slip made it feel more real, not less. Like he had written it in a hurry, years ago, hoping he would never have to use it.
Vincent’s warning echoed in my head. If you get that text, run.
I read David’s message again.
Come home now.
Something about it felt wrong. Not just the missing endearments. Something deeper. Some instinct in me was screaming to notice it.
I folded the letter carefully, slid it back into the envelope, tucked both envelope and key into my purse, and walked in the opposite direction from my mother’s car. Toward the back of the cemetery. Toward the silver Honda I had parked that morning, away from the other mourners.
My phone buzzed again. David was calling now.
I silenced it.
Behind me, they were lowering an empty coffin into the ground.
Ahead of me, a storage unit held answers I wasn’t ready for.
And somewhere between those two points, my father was either alive or I was losing my mind.
I got into my Honda and locked the doors.
In the rearview mirror, I saw a black Audi pull into the cemetery parking lot.
