“You old drama queen,” Ruthie called after him.
Ruthie went to the closet door, turned the knob, and pulled. Nothing happened. She yanked harder, then tried pushing. It still didn’t budge.
Weird. She stepped back, studied the door, and noticed now that two boards had been attached, one at the top and one at the bottom, screwed into the frame and across the door itself, preventing it from being opened. Why on earth would anyone seal up a closet door like that?
She’d have to go downstairs and get a screwdriver—a crowbar from the barn, maybe.
“I think I found something.” Fawn’s voice was shaky. Ruthie jumped a little, and then turned to see her sister had pushed back thewool throw rug on the right side of the bed and had pulled open a little trapdoor built into the wide pine floor. Her face was pale.
“What is it?” Ruthie asked, bounding across the room in three leaps.
Fawn didn’t answer, just stared down, eyes huge and worried.
Ruthie looked down into the secret hiding place Fawn had discovered. It was about a foot and a half square, and the wooden floorboards had been cut carefully and put back together as a small door with old brass hinges. It was shallow, only about six inches deep. There, right on top, was a small handgun with a wooden handle. Below it, a shoebox. Ruthie blinked in disbelief. Her mom and dad were peace-loving, pacifist hippies; they hated guns. Her dad could bore you to death with handgun statistics—how much more likely it was that a gun would end up killing a family member than an intruder, how many violent crimes were gun-related. When they killed a chicken or a turkey, their mom made them do this elaborate ceremony, thanking the earth and the bird and urging the bird’s spirit to move on to a higher plane.
“It can’t be Mom’s,” Ruthie said out loud, sure that there was some mistake. She looked at Fawn, who stood frozen, the doll dangling from her hand, swinging like a pendulum over the open hole in the floor.
“We should cover it back up. Leave it alone,” Fawn said.
Ruthie half thought her sister was right. But they had to look, didn’t they? What if whatever was in the box held a clue about what might have happened to their mother?
Ruthie got down on her knees, sitting before the hole in the floor in praying position. She reached for the gun, then stopped, her hand hovering just above it.
“Please don’t,” Fawn said, eyes frantic. “It’s dangerous.”
“Not unless you pull the trigger. Besides, maybe it isn’t even loaded.” Ruthie picked up the gun, surprised by its heaviness. Fawn clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. Ruthie held the weapon gingerly by the metal barrel, not wanting to put her hand anywhere near the trigger. Carefully, she set it down on the floor next to her, making sure it was pointed away from her andFawn. She reached back down into the hole and pulled out the box.Nike, it said on the side.
Ruthie flipped open the top of the shoebox. There was a Ziploc bag tucked inside. The bag held two wallets: a black leather billfold and a large beige one designed for a woman. Ruthie held the clear plastic bag in her hand, suddenly afraid to open it. A prickling feeling worked its way from her hands up her arms and shoulders, settling in her chest.
This was silly. They were only wallets.
Ruthie opened the bag and pulled out the smaller billfold. It held a Connecticut driver’s license and credit cards belonging to a man called Thomas O’Rourke. He had brown hair, hazel eyes, was six feet tall, 170 pounds, and an organ donor. He lived at 231 Kendall Lane, Woodhaven, Connecticut. The woman’s wallet belonged to Bridget O’Rourke. There was no driver’s license, but she carried a Sears credit card, a MasterCard, and an appointment card for Perry’s Hair Salon. Both wallets had a little cash in them. Bridget had change in a special zippered pocket that also contained a small gold bracelet with a broken clasp. Ruthie pulled out the bracelet—it was too tiny to belong to an adult. She dropped it back in.
“Who are they?” Fawn asked.
“No idea.”
“But why are their wallets here?”
“I don’t know, Fawn. What do I look like—a walking crystal ball?”
Fawn chewed her lip harder.
“Sorry,” Ruthie said, feeling like shit. With Mom gone, she was all Fawn had right now.
She knew she hadn’t exactly been the best big sister, even from the very beginning. Ruthie had been obliged to be at Fawn’s birth. The midwife had handed her a drum—the beat was supposed to help keep her mom focused in labor. Ruthie thumped at it halfheartedly, feeling out of place and awkward. When Fawn came out, she was squalling and scrunch-faced—not at all precious or beautiful, despite what her parents and the midwife said. She’d reminded Ruthie of a grub.
As Fawn grew, Ruthie would occasionally play with her—dolls, dress-up, or hide-and-seek—but only because her parents made her, not out of sisterly love. Not that she didn’t love Fawn—she did—but their age difference seemed to put them on entirely different planets.
“All this is just making my head spin, you know?” Ruthie explained. She looked down at Thomas O’Rourke’s driver’s license again. “This is old. It expired, like, fifteen years ago.” She tucked it back into his worn leather billfold, put both wallets back in the bag, then carefully placed the bag right back in the shoebox.
“If Mom gets back, we have to pretend we never found any of this, okay? It has to be our secret.”
Fawn looked like she was about to cry.
“Come on,” Ruthie said, smiling like a cheerleader. “It’s not that hard. You can keep a secret, right? I know you can. You won’t even tell me where you and Mimi were hiding.”
“You saidif,” Fawn said.
