Chapter 5 - The Phantom in the Glass
Daniel sat on the edge of his son’s bed for a full sixty seconds without moving, without breathing, without making a sound.
Three years ago, his wife—Sarah, the mother of Leo and Lily—had died in what the county coroner had ruled a fatal single-vehicle rollover accident on Willow Creek Road. Her car had left the blacktop at 02:00 AM during a heavy thunderstorm, plunging down a seventy-foot ravine into the swollen creek below. Her body had been recovered three days later, five miles downstream.
Daniel had spent thirty-six months living in the shadow of that tragedy, raising Leo alone through the dark, silent months that followed, until Evelyn had entered their lives—a polished, empathetic woman who had volunteered at the local grief support group where Daniel had taken Leo.
She had seemed like a savior. A calm, organizing force that brought warmth back into a house that smelled of stagnant grief and cold coffee.
Now, sitting in the blue light of Leo’s bedroom, Daniel realized that every piece of his life over the past two years had been calculated with surgical, sociopathic precision.
"Leo," Daniel said softly, reaching out to gently touch the uninjured side of his son's face. "Did Evelyn ever go into my home office when I wasn't here?"
Leo nodded slowly, wiping his nose with the back of his royal-blue sleeve. "Yes. Many times."
"What did she do in there?"
"She... she looked at the big metal box," Leo whispered, his eyes wide with secret knowledge. "The one behind the painting of the lighthouse. She had a little black silver thing she plugged into the computer."
Daniel felt a cold droplet of sweat trace a slow line down his spine.
The safe behind the lighthouse painting did not contain money or jewelry. It contained the complete, unredacted legal and medical files regarding Sarah’s death—including the high-resolution autopsy photographs, the toxicology reports, and the private investigator's dossier that Daniel had commissioned six months after the funeral when he had begun to suspect the car crash was not an accident.
Daniel stood up smoothly. "Stay here with Lily, Leo. Lock the door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except me. Do you understand?"
Leo nodded urgently, sliding off the bed and running to the door, his small hand gripping the brass lock button.
Daniel walked silently down the carpeted hallway toward his private study at the far end of the house.
The door to the study was standing half-open.
Daniel pushed it open with the tip of his shoe.
May you like
The heavy mahogany desk in the center of the room was tidy, but the oil painting of the Portland Head Light had been swung away from the wall on its hidden brass hinges.
The door of the heavy steel safe beneath it was standing wide open.
