Chapter 4 - Beneath the Prayer
I did not sleep much.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father at his workbench, writing a sentence he could not have known I would read fourteen years later.
If it returns, look beneath the prayer.
At six in the morning, I sent the photograph to Naomi.
At eight, she called.
“We need the original device and file preserved. Don’t edit or forward it further.”
“Do you think it means something?”
“I think everyone involved is acting as though that book contains more than prayers.”
By noon, a conservator had been asked to examine the manuscript under the supervision of the investigators handling the complaint and the suspected stolen property.
I was not invited to pry apart a priceless binding.
This annoyed me less than it might have before people started locking doors.
The conservator, Miriam Cho, allowed Ruth and me to answer questions about the construction.
Luca waited downstairs.
He had offered a car.
I had accepted after checking that Naomi knew the arrangement and after making clear that transportation did not include ownership of my afternoon.
He had looked faintly amused.
“I’ll try to survive the distinction.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
The discovery came late in the day.
Inside a shallow cavity beneath the repaired back board was a folded sheet of thin paper wrapped around photographic negatives.
My father’s handwriting covered the sheet.
The negatives showed objects, shipping labels, and a ledger.
Not enough to explain everything.
Enough to establish that he had been documenting something deliberately.
There was also a short note.
If these objects surface together, the warehouse account was false. I have copied the entries because the originals will not remain.
My throat closed.
For fourteen years, my father had existed in public records as a man with suspicious associations who died before questions could be answered.
Here was his hand reaching out of those years.
Not asking us to trust him.
Showing us where to look.
Ruth sat down heavily.
“I knew he was worried. I didn’t know he’d done this.”
“What did you know?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“That he wanted to stop accepting certain clients. That he believed some restoration jobs were being used to disguise stolen property. He said he was keeping records.”
“And after he died?”
“I told the investigators what he’d said.”
“Did you tell my mother?”
Ruth’s silence answered first.
Then:
“Not all of it.”
Anger rose so sharply I had to stand.
“You all decided what we could bear.”
“I was afraid of giving her something I couldn’t prove.”
“She spent years wondering whether the man she loved had lied to her.”
“I know.”
“No. You watched. That’s different.”
I left before I said something I could not retrieve.
Outside, Luca stood beside the car with two coffees.
He looked at my face and set them down.
“Would you like me to go?”
I shook my head.
For several minutes, we walked without speaking.
The city moved around us. Delivery bikes. Crosswalk signals. Someone arguing cheerfully with a flower seller.
Ordinary life felt almost insulting.
“My father tried to do something right,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And yours?”
Luca looked ahead.
“My father taught me that loyalty meant never asking what something cost another person.”
“Did you believe him?”
“For too long.”
That honesty hurt more than a denial would have.
I stopped walking.
“If your uncle is involved, what happens?”
“I give my attorney what I know. She arranges the proper contact.”
“You make that sound easy.”
“It won’t be.”
“Will you still do it?”
He met my eyes.
“Yes.”
I wanted to believe him.
I also knew wanting was dangerous.
That evening, I returned to the temporary room Naomi had helped me arrange.
A message waited from an unknown number.
A photograph of my father’s blue trunk.
Then another photograph.
Callum, seated at a table, his face pale.
May you like
Beneath it was a message from someone else.
Ask your new friend what happened to the last man who tried to keep records.
