Mason looked miserable. “Mom said Grandma was obsessed. She hired investigators, wrote letters, called hospitals. My dad told her to let the dead rest. But she never did.”
I remembered the envelope.
Hannah Rae, wherever they have put you.
“What did Diane take from the smokehouse?” I asked.
Mason’s eyes flickered.
“You know something,” I said.
“I don’t know what she took. But after the will reading, Mom kept saying Grandma had no proof. She said if there was proof, she would have found it by now.”
“Proof that I’m Rachel’s daughter?”
“Maybe.”
I stepped closer. “Mason, if your mother stole something from this property, you need to tell me.”
“She’s still my mother.”
“And Eleanor was mine.”
He looked down.
The anger drained out of me, leaving exhaustion. “Please leave.”
He nodded, put his cap back on, and walked to his truck. Before he got in, he turned around.
“There’s a storm cellar under the pantry,” he said. “Mom was asking about it last week. Grandma kept it locked.”
Then he drove away.
I found the cellar door beneath a braided rug in the pantry.
The lock was old but solid. Mr. Reed had given me a ring of keys from Eleanor’s desk, and the seventh key opened it. The stairs were narrow, dropping into darkness that smelled like damp stone and apples gone soft.
I took a flashlight and went down.
The cellar was larger than I expected, with stone walls and wooden shelves lined with jars. Most were empty. Some still held peaches, tomatoes, green beans, all labeled in Eleanor’s handwriting.
At the far end stood a cabinet with chicken wire doors.
Inside were shoeboxes.
Each box had a year written on it.
I found the year I was born.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside were receipts, letters, newspaper clippings, and photographs. On top lay a birthday card addressed to Rachel.
My dearest girl,
Come home. Whatever has happened, whatever you fear, come home. There is nothing you can say that will make me stop being your mother.
The card had never been sent.
Beneath it was a newspaper clipping about a fatal crash outside Hannibal, Missouri. Rachel Anne Whitaker, 21, killed when her car left the road during heavy rain. A two-year-old child believed to have been traveling with her was not found at the scene.
Not found.
I sat on the cold cellar floor and read it again.
Not found.
There were letters from Eleanor to police departments, hospitals, social service offices, churches, shelters. There were copies of responses: no record, no information, unable to confirm. There were private investigator invoices. There were maps with towns circled in red.
And then, at the bottom, I found a photograph.
Rachel stood on the porch holding a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. Eleanor stood beside her, one arm around her shoulders. On the back, someone had written:
Rachel and Hannah Rae, October 2006. Home for one night.
Home for one night.
I touched the baby’s face.
Mine.
A sound came from above.
A floorboard creaked.
I switched off the flashlight.
The cellar went black.
For a moment, I heard only my own breathing. Then footsteps crossed the pantry.
Slow. Careful.
Someone was in the house.
I crouched behind the shelves, clutching the photograph in one hand and the flashlight in the other. The cellar door opened, spilling a rectangle of weak light down the stairs.
“Hannah?”
It was Mason.
I almost cried from relief, then anger replaced it.
“What are you doing in my house?”
He came down two steps. “The back door was open.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
His face changed. “Then someone else opened it.”
Above us, another sound cracked through the house.
Glass breaking.
Mason ran up the stairs. I followed.
The kitchen window over the sink had been smashed. Cold air rushed in. A rock lay on the floor with paper wrapped around it.
Mason picked it up and handed it to me.
The note was written in block letters.
LEAVE WHAT IS BURIED ALONE.
That night, Mr. Reed moved me into his guest room in town, and Sheriff Barlow promised extra patrols around the farm. I hated leaving, but even I understood that sleeping alone in the farmhouse was stupid.
Mr. Reed lived above his law office on Main Street. The apartment smelled like coffee, paper, and old books. He made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, then sat across from me while I spread Eleanor’s cellar files over the table.
“She knew my mother came back,” I said.
“Yes.”
