My hands were shaking so badly that I almost dropped the final page of Emma’s letter.
The knocking stopped.
An eerie silence settled over the house.
I could hear nothing except Noah’s uneven breathing and my own heart racing so violently that it felt ready to burst from my chest.
“Don’t open it,” Noah whispered.
His face had gone completely white.
I stared at him.
“You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”
Tears filled his eyes.
“I hoped he wouldn’t find us.”
My stomach dropped.
Before I could ask another question, the voice outside spoke again.
“Emma trusted me. If you read the letter, then you already know my name.”
A chill ran down my spine.
Slowly, I looked back at the page.
There it was.
A name I hadn’t seen in nearly two decades.
Daniel Mercer.
The man Emma had once sworn she never wanted to see again.
The man she claimed had disappeared forever.
The man who was supposedly responsible for destroying her life.
“No…” I whispered.
It couldn’t be him.
Emma hated Daniel.
Or at least that was the story she told everyone.
Another knock echoed through the hallway.
More patient this time.
Almost confident.
Noah suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Please don’t let him in.”
“Why?”
His answer came out in a broken whisper.
“Because everything Mom told you about him was a lie.”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Panic surged through me.
“What are you talking about?”
Noah looked away.
“Every year since I was six, someone left letters for me.”
“What?”
“He told me things about Mom. About you. About what really happened before she died.”
The room spun around me.
I had raised Noah for eighteen years.
There shouldn’t have been secrets between us.
Yet suddenly I felt like I knew nothing at all.
My hands trembled as I unfolded another folded note hidden inside Emma’s envelope.
A smaller letter.
One I hadn’t noticed before.
The handwriting was unmistakably hers.
If Daniel ever comes back, do not trust your memories. There are things you were made to forget.
My entire body froze.
Made to forget?
What did that even mean?
I read the sentence again and again.
Each time it felt more terrifying.
Then Noah said something that made the blood drain from my face.
“He told me you were there that night.”
I looked up sharply.
“What night?”
“The night Mom died.”
My heart stopped.
“Noah, I wasn’t there.”
“That’s not what he said.”
The front door handle suddenly rattled.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
Someone was trying to come inside.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
“Call the police,” I whispered.
Noah didn’t move.
Instead, he stared at me with a strange expression.
Fear.
Confusion.
And something else.
Doubt.
Then he asked the one question I never expected to hear.
“If you weren’t there that night…”
He swallowed hard.
“…why does Daniel have a photograph of you standing next to Mom’s car five minutes before she died?”
The room fell silent.
My heart nearly stopped.
Because deep down, hidden beneath years of grief and forgotten memories…
I suddenly remembered something.
And at that exact moment, the front door slowly began to open.
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