Chapter 2

Orson turned the key, and a brass gate handle, dark with blood, lay on the shelf inside.

The air from the room smelled of dust and old fabric. The handle sat on a folded canvas drop cloth, dried blood dark along the brass.

Seth made himself breathe. Audra stopped in the doorway.

“Don’t touch anything,” Orson said. “I mean it.”

“You kept it,” Audra said.

“She was private. This was her room.” Orson stepped in front of the shelf. “Wes fell at the gate. Hit his head on the lock bar. I brought the handle up because it was loose.”

“The handle,” Seth said. “Not the body.”

Orson’s hand tightened on the key. “Accidents happen. The deputies came and went by noon. The coroner will call it what it is.”

“At 4:52 this morning the gate opened,” Seth said. “That’s in the log. Wes was found at 6:10. That’s not an accident of the gate.”

“A log doesn’t show a face.” Orson looked at Seth. “It shows a release. If you want to stand in my house and call me a killer, boy, say it.”

“Dad.” Audra moved between them. “He didn’t call you that.”

“Then he can go.”

“You opened the room,” Audra said. “Let me see what Mom kept. Please.”

Orson stood there. His phone buzzed in his vest. He pulled it out and read the screen, and his mouth flattened.

“Sheriff’s office,” he said. “I have to take this.” He stepped back and pulled the door wider. “Five minutes. Nothing leaves this room. I know what’s on every shelf, and I’ll know if one thing moves. Then I lock it for good.”

He walked toward the kitchen with the phone at his ear. “Orson Venn,” he said, and his boots faded up the hall.

Seth and Audra didn’t move. The room looked back at them: a sewing machine under a white cover, boxes of folded muslin, a row of ledger spines. A low shelf held the handle and a blue-painted tin box. A small brass key hung from a nail above it.

“She didn’t sew in here,” Audra said. “Not for years.”

Seth stayed by the door. “Where’s the schedule?”

“Probably in that box.” Audra looked at the key. “She kept the original and the carbon. Mom didn’t trust paper to one place.”

“Your father’s not going to let us walk out with it.”

“He’s on the phone with the sheriff’s office. He gave us five minutes.” She took the key down. “And he’ll lock this door behind us.”

“He said he’d know if one thing moved.”

“Then I’ll move one thing.” She fitted the key to the tin box.

The lid came up. Inside were folded papers tied with cotton string. Audra lifted them out and set them on the sewing machine.

She unfolded the top sheet. A blue backing, cream paper. At the bottom, Lenore Venn’s signature stood sharp above the date.

Seth came closer. “What does it say?”

Audra didn’t answer. Her thumb moved over her mother’s name. The page shook once.

Orson’s voice came from the hall. “Time.”

Audra folded the schedule once and slid it under the waistband of her jeans. She closed the tin box and dropped the small key into her pocket.

The door swung open.

The blue-backed schedule lay folded against her shirt, Lenore’s signature tucked along the seam.