Chapter 9 - The Truth Behind the Red Cover
For one beat, none of us moved. Then Mom pushed back from the title-office table, her sling brushing the chair.
“We’re going.”
Marlene looked toward the front windows. “Where?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, already grabbing my coat. “But Daniel took her keys. She called us from somewhere close enough for him to find her.”
Mom’s good hand closed around the strap of her purse. Her face had gone gray, but her voice held.
“Then we find her before he does.”
Outside, the cold slapped the breath from my lungs. I called Britta’s borrowed number once. It rang, then dropped into a recorded message. I didn’t leave one. If Daniel had her phone—or was listening—anything I said could give him time to move her.
I tried to rebuild the call from its sounds: the hollow door, the scrape close to the speaker, the crash. Beneath them, there had been a steady mechanical rattle, as if something metal were trembling in the wind.
Mom stopped beside the car.
“Behind Grandpa’s workshop,” she said. “Those storage bays. The doors rattle like that.”
I looked at her. “You think she went there?”
“I think she knew the workshop. She knew the papers were missing.” Mom winced as she adjusted her sling. “And there’s nowhere else she could hide something from Daniel if he was watching the diner.”
The drive took less than ten minutes. I parked short of the workshop and killed the headlights. Beyond it, a narrow service lane ran between the trees and a row of storage units, their corrugated doors dulled by years of rain.
The lane looked empty. That didn’t mean we were alone.
Mom stayed by the car while I walked along the units, listening. At the far end, one door stood open the width of my hand. A strip of yellow light cut across the wet gravel.
I heard a muffled voice from inside.
“Britta?”
A shape shifted behind the door.
“I’m alone,” I said. “It’s Anna.”
For a moment, there was no answer. Then the door slid open with a metallic groan.
Britta stood just inside, pale and trembling, one hand curled around the edge of the door. Her hair hung across her face, and a dark smear of dust marked her cheek. I saw no blood. No bruises. She looked shaken, but upright.
Behind her, beneath a blue tarp, something rectangular rested on a stack of plastic bins.
Mom had followed me down the lane. When Britta saw her, her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Mom stopped several feet away. Her good hand rose, then fell back to her side.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
Britta shook her head.
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
Mom nodded once. She didn’t step forward. Britta didn’t either.
The space between them seemed to hold every word neither of them could say.
I looked at the tarp. “Is that the ledger?”
Britta moved in front of it.
“Don’t.”
“Daniel is looking for it,” I said. “You told me Rusk needed it before closing.”
“I said he wanted it.”
“You called us because you knew it mattered.”
“I called because I didn’t know what else to do.” Her eyes flicked to Mom’s sling. “And because I thought he might come back.”
Mom’s jaw tightened. “You knew he would use you.”
Britta flinched as if Mom had raised her voice, though she hadn’t.
“I thought he was helping me.”
“By telling you to come to my house with a bat?”
Britta’s eyes dropped. The silence that followed was not an answer, but it was not a denial either.
I could feel anger climbing my throat. I forced it down—not to spare Britta, but because the ledger was between us, and Daniel might not be far away.
“Move,” I said.
Britta stayed where she was.
“Anna, I’m not giving it to you.”
“You don’t get to keep it hidden while he tries to take the house.”
“I know what you think it proves.”
“It connects his name to the parcels Grandpa marked.”
“That doesn’t prove Daniel did anything.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t. But it’s more than we had yesterday.”
Her fingers tightened around the tarp. “You’ll take it to Mom, and she’ll tell you it’s nothing. Just like the other papers.”
Mom’s face changed. Hurt passed through it, sharp and visible.
“I already told Anna I hid an envelope,” she said. “I already told her it’s gone. I won’t lie about that again.”
Britta stared at her. “You said you had nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.”
Mom glanced at the tarp, then back at her daughter. “Being afraid doesn’t make what you did to me disappear.”
Britta’s lips trembled. She looked at the sling, and this time she didn’t look away.
“I knew you’d try to stop me,” she said. “I went there because Daniel said the papers would get me out from under my debts. He said there was money Grandpa meant for us, and you’d kept it.”
“He told you that,” I said.
“He showed me numbers. He said if I found the originals, Rusk would pay what I owed.” Her voice broke, but she kept going. “I thought you’d make me leave. I thought if I scared you, you’d tell me where they were.”
Mom didn’t move.
“You followed me into the garage,” she said.
“I did.”
“And you picked up the bat.”
Britta swallowed. “Yes.”
“Did you mean to hit me?”
A long pause.
“I meant to make you stop. I knew I could hurt you.”
The words landed with a quiet finality. Mom’s hand closed around the strap of her purse until her knuckles blanched. She did not reach for Britta. She did not tell her it was all right.
“I’m sorry,” Britta whispered.
“I hear you,” Mom said. “That isn’t the same as forgiving you.”
Britta nodded, tears spilling over. Then she stepped aside.
I lifted the tarp. Dust floated in the weak yellow light. Underneath lay a battered red ledger, its corners rounded from age and its cover split along the spine.
My hands shook as I opened it.
The first pages held columns of parcel numbers, dates, and amounts in Grandpa’s tight, slanted handwriting. Farther in, the same parcels appeared beside company names. Rusk Development Group surfaced more than once. On several lines, Daniel’s initials sat in the margin, next to dates that matched the entries on Grandpa’s photocopy.
I took pictures of each page without tearing or removing anything. The camera flash bleached the ink for an instant, then the letters came back—dark and plain.
Mom leaned close, careful not to touch the paper. On a folded note tucked into the back cover, Grandpa had written about Alder Street: the house was held in trust, and no sale could go forward without Mom’s consent.
Her fingers hovered above the note.
“I never signed anything,” she said.
“I know.”
The note was in Grandpa’s hand. It was not a certified trust document, and none of us could make it one by wanting it badly enough. But beside the parcel entries and Daniel’s initials, it changed the shape of the danger. This wasn’t just an old family argument about money. Someone was moving against Mom’s house while the records that might explain its ownership were disappearing.
Britta looked at the ledger. “He said there was nothing in it that could hurt him.”
“Then why did he want it before closing?” I asked.
Her eyes lowered.
My phone buzzed. Marlene’s name appeared on the screen. I opened the message.
The pending transfer on Alder Street had been moved up. The closing was scheduled for this afternoon.
Mom read it over my shoulder. Her hand found the edge of the car door behind her, gripping it as if the ground had shifted.
Britta stared at the red cover.
“He knows we found it,” she said.
May you like
I looked down the empty service lane, where every dark window reflected the pale morning sky.
And somewhere out there, Daniel was still moving faster than we were.
