Chapter 7 - My Dead Father Was Standing Behind Rosa
I zoomed in until the photograph became pixels.
It was him.
Same narrow shoulders.
Same silver hair.
Same old watch he wore every day of my childhood.
“No,” I whispered.
Daniel took the phone.
“Could be old.”
“The timestamp is now.”
“Could be altered.”
“Stop trying to make this less insane.”
Malloy stared at the picture.
“That is Samuel.”
I turned on him.
“You saw him after his death?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say it like that?”
“Because Samuel had a habit of preparing for things before anyone else knew they were coming.”
We drove back to the church at eighty miles an hour.
The basement door was open.
The blue box was gone.
Rosa sat on the floor with her hands tied.
Alive.
I ran to her.
“Who was here?”
She looked at Daniel.
Then me.
“Your father.”
My knees weakened.
“No.”
“He came through the side door. Same voice. Same face.”
“Rosa, I saw his body.”
“So did I.”
Daniel cut her hands free.
“Did he take the drives?”
“No.”
We stared at her.
She pointed toward the old baptismal font.
“I moved them when I heard the door.”
Daniel found all three drives sealed in a plastic bag beneath the lid.
“Then what did he want?” I asked.
Rosa’s expression changed.
“He wanted the key.”
The small brass key from the blue box.
It was gone.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rosa.”
“I swear.”
She took my hands.
“Your father gave me the box the week before he died. He said if anyone came for the key, it meant the second will had been activated.”
Daniel frowned.
“Activated by what?”
Rosa looked at me.
“An attempt on Claire’s life.”
The rooftop.
My father had planned for someone to try to kill me.
That realization hurt almost as much as learning he might be alive.
The church phone rang upstairs.
Nobody moved.
It rang again.
Daniel answered on speaker.
My father’s voice filled the room.
“Claire.”
I grabbed the receiver.
“Dad?”
A long silence.
Then: “You should not have married Daniel Vale.”
I started crying.
“Where are you?”
“That is not the question.”
“Then what is?”
“Ask Daniel what he promised me the night before the wedding.”
I looked at my husband.
His face went white.
“Dad, wait—”
The line clicked dead.
I lowered the receiver.
“What did you promise him?”
Rosa’s wrists were bruised where the rope had been. I cleaned them with church first-aid supplies while she complained I was wasting antiseptic. I asked why she had nearly died for me twice in one day. Her eyes lifted to mine. When my mother was dying, Rosa said, Laura asked her for one thing: do not let Claire grow up believing powerful people are automatically right. My chest tightened. Rosa said servants hear the truth before families do because no one lowers their voice around furniture. Daniel leaned against the wall and said that was disturbingly accurate. Rosa pointed at him and reminded him he still owed her for forty-three years of broken coffee cups. Even then, she made me smile. It felt important that someone in this story had loved me without needing anything from me first.
Daniel said nothing.
Rosa whispered, “Daniel.”
He finally looked at me.
“I promised your father that if you ever learned the truth about Blackthorn House, I would take the baby and leave you behind.”
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