Decide later.
“Goodnight,” I said.
“Goodnight, Jess.”
I nearly ended the call.
Then he said one last thing.
“I think your father expected you to find something in the house.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because there’s a line on the back of the final page.”
“There’s no picture of the back.”
“I just noticed it when I was photographing everything.”
My pulse quickened.
“What does it say?”
“I’ll send it now.”
The call ended.
A moment later, one more photograph arrived.
Just five handwritten words.
This time, unmistakably in my father’s original blue ink.
Ask Evelyn about the greenhouse key.
I slowly turned toward my sister.
Evelyn had gone pale.
“What?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Evelyn.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“I thought he forgot,” she whispered.
“Forgot what?”
She looked toward the window as though she could somehow see across twenty-five miles of darkness to the estate we had left behind.
“Dad gave me a key before he died.”
My heart began beating faster.
“To the greenhouse?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Then what does the note mean?”
Evelyn stood slowly.
“The greenhouse was never locked, Jessi.”
I stared at her.
“Then what was the key for?”
She swallowed.
“For something underneath it.”
The room seemed to narrow around us.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Dad made me promise not to use it unless you asked.”
My voice dropped to a whisper.
“Where is it?”
Evelyn looked at me.
Then toward the hallway.
“In the box with Mom’s things.”
And in that instant, the mystery stopped belonging only to Luca.
It belonged to our family too.
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