The next morning, Gerald needed to know more. He found an address in one of the more recent letters and drove across town.
The small house he arrived at was one he’d likely passed hundreds of times without ever noticing. But now the windows were boarded up, the yard overgrown.
Gerald knocked on the neighbor’s door. An elderly woman answered and studied him carefully.
“Are you looking for Dan?” she asked.
“Yes,” Gerald said.
She sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, dear. Dan passed away three days ago. Quiet funeral. Hardly anyone there. He was a good man, kept to himself mostly. Veteran, I believe.”
Gerald’s legs nearly gave out. Three days ago—right around the time he’d begun hearing those strange sounds in the attic.
More Secrets Revealed
When Gerald got home, he called Martha at the care facility and told her everything he’d learned. There was a long, painful silence on the line.
“Martha? Are you there?”
“He came to see me,” she finally whispered. “Three weeks ago. Before my fall. He said he was sick, that he didn’t have much time. We met at the diner downtown.”
Gerald’s chest tightened. “How long, Martha? How long had you been seeing him?”
“Not seeing,” she said quickly. “Not like that. He’d call once or twice a year, just to ask how James was doing—if he was happy, healthy. It was never romantic. It was always about James.”
“What did he want when he came to see you?”
Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “He brought something for James. Something he wanted his son to have after he was gone. I hid it in the attic with the letters.”
