Outside, the dog was still staring through the screen door.
As if he had been waiting for me to find that note.
Part Three: The Key
I spent the night at the kitchen table with Ethan’s photographs spread around me.
The note lay beneath the lamp.
I compared the handwriting to a birthday card he had made when he was six. The letters were round and crooked. The “E” in Ethan’s name leaned slightly to the left, and he always drew a tiny heart above the letter “i.”
There was no doubt.
The note belonged to him.
I held the key in my palm and tried every lock in the house.
It did not fit the front door, the shed, the attic, or the old cabinet in the hallway.
But it had to fit somewhere.
Ethan had hidden it for a reason.
At dawn, I drove to the cemetery.
