The camera was still there.
Watching.
I went inside, climbed onto a chair, and pulled it from the ceiling.
Behind the plastic casing was a tiny lens and a memory card.
I removed the card.
Ava watched from the doorway.
“What will you do?”
“Find out what they missed.”
Brooke locked the doors while Ava covered the windows.
For the rest of the night, we searched the house.
We found two more cameras.
One inside the kitchen clock.
Another behind the mirror in our bedroom.
The bedroom camera had recorded for months.
Ava could not look at me when I removed it.
Near dawn, I inserted the first memory card into my desktop.
Most footage showed ordinary life.
Meals.
Arguments.
Silence.
Ava leaving for work.
Me falling asleep with reports in my lap.
Then we found a recording from three weeks earlier.
Julian entered our bedroom while both of us were away.
He removed a small wooden box from beneath the bed.
Ava frowned.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Julian opened the box and photographed its contents.
Before leaving, he placed it inside the wall behind the dresser.
We moved the dresser.
A small section of drywall had been cut and replaced.
Behind it sat a wooden box.
The brass key in my palm fit the lock.
Inside was a photograph of my father standing beside a woman outside Union Station.
Her face had been circled in red.
Beneath the photograph lay a train ticket dated for the following Tuesday.
Washington, D.C.
One passenger.
My name.
Brooke found a note beneath it.
I recognized my father’s handwriting.
I had not seen it since the sympathy cards after his funeral.
Ryan,
When they offer you two choices, search for the third.
Do not trust the man who gives you the key.
I read the last line twice.
Ava’s father had given me the key.
My own father’s note told me not to trust him.
Brooke looked toward the driveway.
“He knew you would receive it.”
Ava whispered, “Or someone wants you to think your father wrote this.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered without speaking.
Julian’s voice came through.
“You found the box.”
Ava moved closer.
“Where are you?”
Julian ignored her.
“Ryan, do not go to Washington.”
“Why?”
“Because the woman in that photograph died last night.”
Brooke stared at me.
Julian continued.
“And police believe you were the last person who contacted her.”
The call ended.
A second later, someone knocked on the front door.
Three slow knocks.
Exactly like before.
Ava reached for my arm.
Brooke stepped away from the hallway.
I looked through the glass beside the door.
No one stood on the porch.
Only a small package rested beneath the American flag.
My name was written across the top.
This time, the handwriting was not an imitation.
It was mine.
Inside the package was a second brass key.
The number stamped into it was 318.
And beneath it was a photograph taken only moments earlier.
It showed Ava, Brooke, and me standing together in the kitchen, reading my father’s note.
On the back, someone had written one sentence:
One of them already knows what the second key opens.