Chapter 13 - Snow on the Headstone
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My knees almost buckled beneath me. Samuel caught my arm, but I pushed his hand away, pressing the phone tighter to my ear.
“Caleb?” I sobbed. “Is that really you?”
“It’s me, Birdie,” my brother whispered through the static. “I’m so sorry... I’m so sorry I left you.”
“Where are you?! Why did you disappear for twenty-five years?!”
“I had to run, Natalie,” Caleb said, his voice thick with unexpressed pain. “The men who wanted that Northstar technology framed me for stealing millions from the corporate accounts. If I stayed, I would have been killed or locked away forever. I thought if I drew them away from the state, you would be safe with Samuel.”
“Caleb, listen to me,” I begged. “I found the compass behind the boathouse shelf. I have the coordinates!”
“Do not let Samuel take you to those coordinates, Natalie!” Caleb ordered sharply, his tone turning dead serious.
I froze. “Why? What’s at those coordinates?”
Silence stretched across the line for three agonizing seconds.
“That’s where he buried your father,” Caleb revealed softly.
The phone slipped an inch in my hand. I looked up at Samuel, whose face was completely unreadable in the dim light of the boathouse.
“My father is buried at Oakridge Cemetery,” I told Caleb. “I visit his grave every year!”
“That headstone at Oakridge is empty, Birdie,” Caleb replied bitterly. “Samuel buried your father’s real remains privately twenty-five years ago to keep the autopsy report hidden from the press. Ask him. Ask him right now.”
I ended the call, staring at the old man who had raised me.
“Is my father at Oakridge?” I asked quietly.
May you like
Samuel swallowed hard, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“No,” Samuel admitted softly. “The coordinates lead to your mother’s ancestral family plot in Blackwood Pines. That is where your father truly rests.”
