But the center is missing an essential piece.
As I stare at the book and its worn and yellowed pages, the answer clicks in my head like the strike of a match. There’s still one place left I might find some answers.
I lift my gaze to the ceiling.
And I know what I have to do.
37
The journal must be in here.
I stare into the dusty storage room and feel a certainty in the marrow of my bones.
I’ve searched the rest of the house, hitting every pillow and testing every floorboard. Looking under beds and the bottom of drawers. No police search team could do a better job.
So there’s only one place Rose could have hidden the journal.
The storage room and its thirty-odd, taped-up boxes.
If she left the journal here at all.
I shake my head and slip off the negativity. I can’t afford to think like that. No second-guessing or backing off. It’s raining a torrent outside, and I have nowhere else to go. I might as well use this opportunity.
Stepping in the room, I flip the switch and turn on the weak single bulb. This time, though, I came prepared. With a flashlight I found under the kitchen sink, a knife to slice tape, and a box of tissues for when I start sneezing.
The musty smell assaults my nose, and I almost reconsider. But then I recommit and move toward the right-hand corner. With the flashlight propped up and pointing down, I slice through the top of the first box I come to.
Linens sit inside, neatly folded and stacked. My first instinct is to set them aside and move on, but I stop myself from closing the lid. I can’t afford to be lazy.
I sift through the material, lifting out sheets and lace and napkins before squeezing each bundle and checking the bottom of the empty box. Nothing. Not in this one.
Exhaling, I glance around the room. At this rate, I’ll be here for hours.
But I need to know what Rose found out. What did she read in the journal?
Leaving the door standing open, I take the first box out into the hall. As soon as I clear a spot inside the room, I can shift the boxes around, stacking the ones I’ve checked in the empty corner.
The process is laborious, but checking off containers makes me feel productive. I go through toys, art projects, vinyl records. All the personal detritus we all collect in a lifetime. Again and again, like a well-oiled robot. Open, sift, clear, restack. Open, sift, clear, restack.
Many of the containers aren’t taped at all, simply held closed by overlapping flaps. Changing my plan, I focus on these boxes first. After an hour, I’m a quarter of the way finished and considering a bathroom break.
When I step back to survey my work, I kick into something hard.
The old steamer trunk.
But there’s no way the journal is hidden inside. I tried opening it last time, and the latches were locked. Weren’t they?
My memory from before plays in my mind like a film. I remember the navy-blue leather turned gray by dust. I see my hands reaching for the lock. And then I remember jumping when I saw the black spider.
But I tried to open the trunk. Didn’t I?
Uncertain, I kneel down. The two latches on the end are open, but when I pull the one in the middle, it’s locked tight, my fingertips scraping over rusted brass. Rusted. Could it simply be seized by the rust and stuck in place?
Pressing the fingers of both hands in from each side, I pull with all my might. The latch doesn’t give.
I need oil from the kitchen, or a pump of hand soap. Or maybe a few good knocks will loosen the rust.
My sinuses are swollen from dust and my eyes filled with grit, so Iwantthe journal to be inside the trunk. I want to have an excuse to get out of this room.
