Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Floorboards
The digital clock on the dashboard read 2:14 AM as we crept back into the twins' bedroom.
The house was dead silent, save for the rhythmic, gentle breathing of Jordan and Justin, who were now tucked safely into their respective twin beds, each clutching a worn pillow. Annie moved like a shadow across the carpet, kneeling beside the baseboard heating unit beneath the north-facing window.
Using a butter knife she had brought from the kitchen, she carefully unscrewed the rusted metal grate of the heater. I crouched behind her, holding a small tactical flashlight, my breath catching in my throat as the grate came away with a soft metallic scrape.
Inside the dusty cavity, wedged behind a tangle of old copper pipes, was a heavy, waterproof canvas zipper pouch.
Annie pulled it out and handed it to me. My hands shook as I unzipped the rusted zipper. Inside wasn’t money, or legal documents, or corporate files.
It was a stack of thick, handwritten journals, a digital voice recorder, and a sealed manila envelope labeled in Lauren’s precise, elegant handwriting: To Richard, if anything ever happens to me.
“Open it,” Annie whispered, her shoulder brushing against mine as we knelt together in the dark room.
I broke the wax seal on the envelope and pulled out a three-page letter, unfolding the heavy cream paper under the beam of the flashlight.
Richard, If you are reading this, it means Eleanor got what she wanted, and I didn't make it home. I know how you handle pressure. You retreat into Morrison Dynamics. You build walls of numbers and contracts, believing that providing financial security is the same as being a father. But Richard, my mother is suffocating our boys. She has been visiting while you’re at the office, filling their heads with terror, telling them that if they cry too much, God will take them away like He took me. She wants them dependent on her. She wants to mold them into the perfect, obedient heirs she always wished I had been.
My vision blurred. A hot, scalding tear broke free, tracking down my cheek and splashing onto the paper, smudging the black ink of Lauren’s handwriting.
The crash on the Saw Mill River Parkway wasn’t an accident, Richard, the letter continued, the words hitting me like a physical blow to the chest. My brakes failed. Two days after I told Eleanor I was moving the boys out of state to live with you full-time and cutting her out of our lives. Check the service records of my SUV in the police impound lot. The main hydraulic line was severed. Not worn out. Cut.
I stopped breathing. The room seemed to tilt violently on its axis.
May you like
She murdered her own daughter, I whispered, the words tearing through my vocal cords in a strangled gasp.
“And she’s coming for your boys tomorrow morning,” Annie said grimly, her hand gripping my forearm with iron strength. “She didn’t just file for emergency custody to win a legal battle, Mr. Morrison. She filed it because she knows those journals exist, and she knows your sons saw her tamper with that car.”
