Chapter 13
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the key wasn’t there.”
I looked down at the brass key in Vanessa’s palm.
“Where is the cabinet now?”
“At the house.”
“Then we’re going.”
Dominic’s head lifted.
“Naomi—”
“No.”
“You don’t know what’s inside.”
“I know what’s outside.
My mother’s handwriting.
Your father’s study.
A missing man.
Thirteen years of lies.”
“I don’t want you walking into this because you’re upset.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t get to protect me from information about my own family.”
His expression tightened, but he nodded.
“You’re right.”
The agreement unsettled me more than an argument would have.
Vanessa slipped the key into my hand.
The metal was cold against my palm.
On one side, barely visible beneath the tarnish, someone had scratched a single initial.
N.
Not Nomi.
N.
I turned it over.
A number had been engraved on the back.
217.
I looked at Dominic.
“Does that mean anything?”
His face changed.
It was subtle, but unmistakable.
The color left his cheeks, and his eyes shifted beyond me toward the city, as though he were seeing another place entirely.
“What?”
I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Dominic.”
“Room 217.”
“Where?”
He swallowed.
“The old Lakeshore Hotel.”
I waited.
He looked at the key in my hand.
“That was the room where I was told your father went after he left our house.”
A silence opened between us.
My pulse began to pound.
“You knew this?”
“I remembered it just now.”
“Why would a key to that room be in your father’s study?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was my father there?”
Dominic’s eyes met mine.
“I never saw him leave the hotel.”
The words seemed to hang in the frozen air.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was there that night.”
“You said you stayed in the house.”
“I said I went downstairs.
I didn’t tell you what happened after.”
“Then tell me now.”
His voice dropped.
“My father sent me to the Lakeshore with a message.
He told me to deliver it to a man in room 217.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.
The door was open when I arrived.”
“And my father?”
Dominic stared at the brass key.
“He was inside.”
My breath caught.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you say you didn’t know what happened to him?”
“Because I left before he did.”
“Why?”
Dominic looked at me, and whatever he had kept hidden for thirteen years finally reached the surface.