Chapter 4: The Garage Behind the House
By morning, the threat had stopped looking like a piece of paper and started feeling like a hand at the back of my neck.
Sophia was still unconscious. The nurse said there’d been no change, and I thanked her as if gratitude could keep my voice from breaking. Then I went downstairs, where Samuel waited near the hospital entrance with his backpack hugged close against his side.
“We’re going,” I said.
He studied my face. “You sure?”
“No.” I glanced back toward the elevators. “But I’m going anyway.”
The abandoned garage sat behind the neighboring property, screened from the street by a sagging fence and a strip of scrubby trees. We drove past once before turning onto the narrow road behind it. No dark car waited at the curb. No engine idled in the shade. That didn’t mean we were alone.
Samuel pointed to a patch of gravel near the fence.
“Don’t park right in front,” he said. “If someone’s watching, we don’t need to make it easy.”
I parked beneath a maple gone yellow at the edges. From there, the garage looked less abandoned than neglected: one crooked door, a window clouded with dust, weeds poking through cracks in the concrete.
“Before we go in,” I said, “tell me what Sophia asked you to do.”
Samuel’s eyes shifted to the garage.
“You said she’d asked what you’d noticed. That she seemed scared.” I kept my voice low. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He rubbed his thumb along the seam of his backpack strap.
“She came by here a few weeks before she got hurt. I was outside, fixing the latch on the side door.”
“And?”
“She asked if I’d noticed anyone around the house. Cars that didn’t belong. People coming by when you weren’t home.”
The words landed harder than they should have. “She asked you to watch the property?”
“She didn’t say it like that. Not exactly.” He looked at me. “She said she’d feel better if I kept an eye out. I was here most nights anyway.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought she’d tell you herself.” His expression tightened. “I thought she was worried about nothing.”
I turned toward the house, though its roof was all I could see over the fence. I tried to picture Sophia asking a stranger to watch the place we’d called home. Tried to picture her choosing her words carefully so I wouldn’t hear the fear in them.
“What did you say to her?”
“That I would.”
“And you did?”
“I noticed the van. The late visits.” His voice grew rougher. “I should’ve done more.”
I wanted to ask why he hadn’t come to the door, why he hadn’t called me, why he hadn’t made the fear impossible to ignore. But every answer I imagined ended with Sophia alone, and I couldn’t stand to make Samuel carry all of it for me.
“Show me where she came to you.”
He opened the side door. It gave a long, rusty groan. Dust and cold metal smell rolled out around us. A warped workbench leaned against the far wall beneath a row of empty hooks. The daylight coming through the dirty window made the floating dust look almost gentle.
Samuel pointed to the spot near the door.
“She stood there. Said she didn’t want trouble.”
“And you promised to watch.”
“I did.”
I stepped farther inside. The concrete floor was scattered with leaves, small bolts, and flakes of paint. Someone had been here recently. A clean strip on the bench showed where an object had been moved. Near the wall, fresh marks cut through the dust.
Samuel crouched beside the workbench but didn’t touch it.
“There,” he said.
A torn envelope was wedged behind one of the bench’s warped legs, its paper gray with dust. I pulled on the gloves from my jacket pocket and eased it free. The flap had been ripped open. Whatever had been inside was gone.
Samuel leaned toward the bench.
“Something else.”
A phone charger had been tucked into the narrow gap behind it. The cable was kinked, the plug scraped as if it had been pulled out in a hurry.
I stared at it. “Any idea what kind of phone?”
“No.”
“Do you think Sophia left it?”
“I don’t know.”
I turned the envelope over. It had no name, no address, no markings I could make out. Just a torn edge and a faint crease where it had been folded.
The missing phone came to mind. So did the late visits, the van returning to our house after Sophia was gone. The garage had been searched, and someone had left things behind—or failed to find them.
A vehicle door slammed outside.
Samuel went still.
I straightened. Through the dusty window, I saw a man get out of a dark work van. He was broad-shouldered, dressed in a neat jacket that didn’t belong with the garage’s sagging boards and rusted hinges.
I knew him from the hospital photographs.
Dean Mercer.
“Put that down,” he called from outside.
Samuel’s face lost its color.
Dean came through the open doorway without waiting for an answer. His gaze moved from Samuel to me, then settled on the envelope in my gloved hand.
“This is private property,” he said.
“You own the garage?” I asked.
“My business does.”
“Funny. It looks abandoned.”
“Still doesn’t make it yours.” Dean took one step closer. “Give me what you found.”
I closed my fingers around the envelope.
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing.” His eyes dropped to my hand. “I’m asking you to put back what doesn’t belong to you.”
“You were here before.”
His jaw shifted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Someone’s been searching this place.”
“Then maybe you should leave before you get hurt.”
The threat was quiet, almost weary. That made it worse. I thought of the note under my windshield wiper. Stay away from the garage if you want your wife to wake up. I thought of Sophia’s voice—though I had no memory yet of hearing it—asking Samuel to keep watch.
I took half a step toward the doorway, keeping the envelope in sight.
Dean’s expression changed. For an instant, his eyes fixed on the torn paper as if he recognized it.
May you like
Then he looked straight at me.
“Sophia should have kept her nose out of the accounts.”
