Chapter 5
“At first I thought your mother feared my family’s name. Then I realized she feared what it meant to know too much.”
“Meaning?”
“Being erased,” he said quietly. “From the story.”
The phrase landed like ice.
I swallowed. “The missing page?”
Richard hesitated again. “Your mother wrote names. A location. A theory about what happened to Elise’s baby.”
“So you tore it out.”
“I removed it because I believed it would put you in danger.”
“You didn’t even know I existed when she wrote it.”
“No,” he admitted. “But once I found you… once I saw Michael involved… I knew the past was already reaching you.”
I exhaled shakily. “So you decided what I was allowed to know.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Michael said the same thing.”
That made him flinch.
The comparison hung between us—unspoken but understood.
Richard looked down. “You’re right to say it.”
Silence followed.
Outside, snow drifted past the window in thin silver streaks. Somewhere in the city, Michael was disappearing. Ashley was running out of places to hide. And my father—Richard Vale—was sitting beside my bed with a truth he had kept half-buried for years.
“Where is the page?” I asked.
He reached into his coat.
For a moment, I thought he would finally give it to me.
Instead, he placed a small brass key in my hand.
It was attached to an old blue ribbon.
My mother’s ribbon.
“I didn’t want to bring it here,” he said. “It opens a vault in Boulder. The page is inside. Along with everything else.”
My fingers tightened around it. “Why not just bring the documents?”
“Because I don’t trust who’s watching us.”
That sentence shifted the air.
“What do you mean?”
Richard glanced toward the door. “Ashley shouldn’t have been able to reach you. Your hospital access was restricted. Only a few people could override it.”
My chest tightened.
“You think someone inside helped?”
“Or someone with access to those who are inside.”
“Michael?”
“He doesn’t have that level of reach,” Richard said. “Not alone.”
The implication was clear.
May you like
“Your family,” I said.
Richard didn’t deny it.
