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If you are reading this, something happened, and I could not come back when I promised. I hid this before I left because I was already afraid. Someone has been watching me. If one of the children finds this when they are old enough to understand, go to Blackwood Chapel. If I am not there, wait until nightfall.
There was a second note, shorter.
Do not trust everyone who mourned me.
He looked ashamed. “A week.”
“What kind of messages?”
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“A week?”
“I read one of the letters first. Then I got scared.”
“Scared of what?”
He swallowed. “Someone’s been messaging me.”
“What kind of messages?”
“Anonymous account. No picture. No name. Stuff like, ‘Some graves should stay closed.’ And, ‘Dead women should stay dead.’ I thought it was a prank. Then I found the box.”
Then a voice came from the far corner.
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That night, after the other kids were asleep, Daniel and I drove to Blackwood Chapel.
Behind the broken altar was a narrow wooden door.
We went down.
My flashlight landed on an old coat hanging from a nail.
Alice’s coat.
Then a voice came from the far corner.
Now she was here.
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“I knew one day you would come.”
I turned.
And there she was.
Older. Thinner. Pale. But Alice.
Daniel made this broken sound and ran to her. She dropped to her knees and grabbed him so hard I thought she might never let go again.
Now she was here.
Daniel pulled back just enough to look at her.
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She looked up at me with tears streaming down her face. “I wanted to come back.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
She flinched.
Daniel pulled back just enough to look at her. “Mom, what happened?”
Alice sat against the wall. “The day of the crash, I wasn’t just going into town. I was meeting someone who said he had information about your father.”
“Somebody knew the children’s names.”
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I frowned. “What information?”
“Before he died, he found out money was disappearing from a church charity. A lot of it. He also thought foster and adoption records were being altered. Kids were being moved faster when certain people signed off. He started keeping notes. He told me there were people in town I couldn’t trust.”
She kept going. “At first I thought grief was making him suspicious. Then after he died, I started getting notes. Calls with no one speaking. I would look outside and see a car I didn’t recognize. Somebody knew the children’s names. Their schools. My schedule.”
Then someone found her in the woods.
