PART 5 – THE SECRET IN THE NOTEBOOK
I stared at the name on the back of the photo. It was a name I had never heard before, and yet something threatening resonated in the letters. My hands shook so badly that the photo almost slipped from my fingers.
What did my father have to do with this man? Why would anyone still be looking for things from this past after all these years?
I set the photos aside and picked up the red notebook. The pages were filled with my mother's hasty, angular handwriting. It looked like a diary, but it was darker, full of fear and forebodings. I began to read on a random page somewhere in the middle.
“May 14. I found a document in the old safe in the attic today. It wasn't about his businesses, but about a transaction from the year of our wedding. A sum is mentioned so large that we could have bought an entire city with it. But the worst part isn't the money. It's the name of the beneficiary. The same name as the man we thought was forgotten all these years. He is lying to me. He has always lied to me.”
I turned the page.
“June 22. Today I saw a car parked in front of the house. A black limousine with tinted windows. No one was sitting in it, but it stood there for hours. When I looked outside, I saw a figure by the hedge. I am scared. Not for myself, but for the children. Especially my eldest son. He noticed something... and now he has fled to protect us.”
A lump constricted my throat. My mother knew. She knew my brother hadn't simply run away out of stubbornness or a fight; he had fled because he had discovered something that was life-threatening. And my father... my father had guarded this secret until his death.
Yet why had my mother never said a word to me? Why did I have to find this out only after she was already buried?
The grandfather clock in the hallway struck three. The wind continued to rage around the house, and the pelting rain beat against the broken kitchen window. Suddenly I heard a noise from outside. This time not footsteps, but the soft hiss of a car door gently clicking shut.
I held my breath and crept on tiptoe to the living room window. Through the gap in the curtains, I peeked outside.
Two black cars were parked on the side of the road. The headlights were turned off, but I could make out the silhouettes of two men slowly approaching the front door. They wore dark coats and hats that hid their faces.
They were back.
