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“What’s under there, huh?” I murmur. “More of your holy treasures?”

My movements speed up. Mechanical. Detached. I dry him, but I’m not here anymore. My mind is under the floor, in the dark, with everything he tried to bury.

“You always loved to hide things,” I whisper, leaning in close enough to smell the antiseptic on his skin. “But you’re not as clever as you think.”

His eyes twitch. He knows what’s coming.

I leave the office and head for the detached garage. The door groans open, and cold air floods over me like relief. The pearl Cadillac sits in the gloom like a corpse in a suit. His workbench, dust-choked and neat. And there, resting like it’s been waiting for me all this time, the crowbar.

When I return, his gaze finds it instantly. His fingers twitch. He looks away, shame coating his face.

“Oh, don’t stop staring now,” I say, twirling it once in my hand. “You and I both know this floorboard isn’t just creaking for fun.”

I drop to my knees beside the loose plank. The wood sighs beneath me.

“Your whiskey. Your filth. My mother. The men you let in. The sermons you preached after.” His breath catches. A sound crawls from his throat.

I jam the bar into the seam and press. The wood groans. The nails resist. Of course they do.

“What are you so scared of, Father?” I hiss. “That I’ll find the evidence? Or that I already did?”

The board cracks. I press harder. Sweat beads on my forehead. My arms shake, but I don’t stop.

With a final shriek of protest, the nails give. The plank lifts.

And there, in the hollow beneath, is a box.

Metal. Shoebox-sized. Scuffed. Dented.

Locked.

I sit back on my heels, staring at it.

The box isn’t just a box. It’s a coffin. A confessional. A challenge.

I reach in, fingers brushing the cold steel. It’s heavier than it should be. Alive with history.

When I lift it into the air, his chest stutters. It rises and falls like something is squeezing it from the inside.

I hold it up for him to see.

“What’s this?” I ask. My voice is sweet poison. “A little treasure chest? Your gospel?”

He wheezes. His lips move. But there’s nothing left in them that can stop me.

I shake the box. It rattles, just barely. Like it’s holding its breath too.

I flick the lock. “You think this lock is going to stop me?” I laugh, sharp and dry. “You think after everything, this is the line I won’t cross?”

I reach into my pocket and pull out the key I found on the ground when the movers were moving the desk out. I’m sure it fell out when they were boxing up all the papers in the drawers. No one noticed it, but I did. I just didn’t think it would come into use so soon.

His body seizes like I’ve hit a nerve.

He lurches upright, gasping, more noise than I’ve heard from him in weeks.

“That’s what I thought.”

I tuck the box under my arm and walk out.