Chapter 8 - THE HIDDEN DIARY
“Where is her diary?” I asked, standing up again. “If she wrote this… there must be more.”
Clara looked toward the staircase.
“She kept it in her bedside table. But after she died… I looked. It was gone. I assumed she had hidden it somewhere else. Or someone took it.”
“Vanessa,” I said. “She was in our bedroom often. She could have found it. Read it. Learned everything.”
Clara shook her head.
“If Vanessa had it… she would have destroyed it. Or used it against you. She would not leave secrets for you to find.”
“Then Silas has it,” I said. “He found the diary. He read the note. He placed it in the locket to confuse me.”
“Or…” Clara paused. “Or the traitor still lives in this house. And they have had the diary all along.”
I looked around my own living room. At the familiar walls. The furniture. The photographs.
Who among us had been here all along? Who had watched my wife write those words? Who had taken the diary? Who had helped Vanessa walk freely through my home?
Clara. Olivia. Arthur. My attorney. Mrs. Hale who came twice a week.
Anyone.
Everyone.
“I need to find that diary,” I said. “If she wrote that note… she must have written more. Names. Dates. Faces. Something.”
Clara nodded.
“I will help you. We will search every room. Every box. Every drawer. But Adrian… be prepared. If she wrote it… the truth might be harder to bear than the mystery.”
We searched through the night.
Boxes in the attic. Drawers in the study. Cabinets in the kitchen.
Nothing.
By dawn, I sat exhausted on the floor of the library. Surrounded by books and papers.
Clara walked in with a tray of tea. She looked tired.
“I found nothing,” she said quietly.
I rubbed my face.
“Someone took it. Someone does not want me to know the truth.”
“Or…” Clara knelt beside me. “She hid it where no one would think to look. In plain sight.”
I looked up.
“Where?”
“Where she always kept her most precious things. In the nursery. Beneath the floorboards beneath Emma’s crib.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Emma’s room?”
“She said it was the safest place,” Clara said. “Because no one would ever hurt a child’s room.”
I stood up so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor.
We hurried upstairs.
Emma was still asleep. Olivia beside her bed. Watching. Guarding.
I knelt beside the crib. I felt along the floorboard edge. There was a loose nail. I pried it up.
Beneath the floor lay a small, leather-bound book.
I pulled it out.
May you like
My hands trembled as I opened it.
The first page bore my wife’s handwriting.
