Chapter 6 - The Secret in the Attic
While Lucas was on the operating table undergoing an emergency craniotomy, Evelyn knew she couldn't just sit in the waiting room waiting for bad news. There were too many missing pieces. How had a seventeen-year-old boy identified her? Why had he spent fourteen months buying her coffee instead of calling the police, or slashing her tires, or demanding justice?
She pulled out her phone and dialed the Route 9 coffee stand.
Rosemary answered on the second ring. ""Delgado's Coffee, this is Ro.""
""Ro, it's Evelyn.""
""Oh, thank God! Evelyn, is he okay? Kurt's been breathing down my neck all morning, but I couldn't focus on anything. Did you see him?""
""He's in brain surgery right now, Ro. It's touch and go,"" Evelyn said, walking briskly toward the hospital parking lot. ""Listen to me, I need a favor. I know where he lives. The hospital had an address in Brewer. I need to go there. I need to understand what he was doing.""
""I'm coming with you,"" Rosemary said without hesitation. ""Kurt just took over the window for the lunch rush anyway. Pick me up behind the Shell station in ten minutes.""
Twenty minutes later, Evelyn's Corolla pulled up to a dilapidated single-story cottage near the riverbank in Brewer. The paint was peeling, and the front steps were covered in undisturbed snow. It looked like an abandoned ghost house, yet there was a small, neat pile of firewood stacked by the door.
Evelyn found a spare key hidden inside a rusted magnetic box under the porch railing—a classic trick of people who lived alone.
The inside of the house was freezing cold. The living room was almost entirely bare: a second-hand plaid couch, a small space heater that was turned off to save electricity, and a folding card table that served as a desk. But the moment Evelyn and Rosemary stepped into the back bedroom, they stopped dead in their tracks.
The walls were covered in cork boards, pinned with newspaper articles, handwritten notes, and photographs.
""Sweet mother of mercy,"" Rosemary whispered, clutching her heavy winter coat tightly around herself. ""What was this boy doing?""
In the center of the wall was a photograph of Evelyn. It was taken from across the street at the coffee stand—the very same angle where his green Honda used to idle every morning. Below the photo was a family tree tracing Richard Hayes, his death in 2012, his connection to the hit-and-run truck, and finally, Evelyn's name circled in red ink.
""He was tracking me,"" Evelyn whispered, tears burning her eyes once more. ""He knew Richard killed his mother.""
May you like
""Wait, Evelyn, look at this,"" Rosemary said, pointing to a wooden lockbox sitting open on the bedside table. Inside the box was a thick manila envelope labeled in bold black marker: TO BE OPENED ONLY IF I DON'T MAKE IT TO EIGHTEEN.
Evelyn reached out with a trembling hand and picked up the envelope. Inside was a legal document and a handwritten letter addressed to: Nurse Evelyn Hayes.
