Chapter 9 - White Lilies and Cold Ink
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“A brother?” My voice cracked. “I have a brother? Why didn’t you tell me I had a brother?!”
“Because Caleb disappeared twenty-five years ago!” Samuel insisted, his composure finally cracking under the weight of the past. “Three days after your parents’ car crash, Caleb vanished from his boarding school without a trace! The police assumed he ran away... or worse. I spent a decade searching for him, Natalie! I found nothing!”
Before I could digest the explosive revelation, a gentle knock sounded on the door of Room 412.
A nurse stepped inside, carrying a large glass vase filled with stunning, stark-white lilies.
“Mrs. Holloway?” the nurse asked politely. “These were just dropped off for you at the front desk.”
I frowned. “From who? Grant’s parents?”
“There was no signature on the delivery tag,” the nurse said, placing the heavy vase on the bedside tray before stepping out and closing the door behind her.
Samuel immediately stood up, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at the flowers. Tucked between two large white petals was a small, cream-colored card sealed in a plain envelope.
Samuel reached out and pulled the card free. He opened it, scanned the single handwritten sentence inside, and instantly stopped breathing.
All the color drained from his face, leaving him looking frail and decades older.
“Samuel?” I asked, panic rising in my chest. “What does it say?”
Without a word, he handed the card to me.
Written in dark blue ink, in sharp, precise cursive, was a single line:
Ask Samuel what he removed from the wreck before the police arrived.
Below the words was a detailed, hand-drawn sketch of an old-fashioned nautical compass.
I stared at the drawing, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“You know who wrote this, don’t you?” I whispered, looking up at Samuel.
May you like
Samuel turned his head toward the window, looking out into the dark, snowy night.
“That handwriting,” Samuel said quietly, his voice trembling with an emotion I had never heard from him before, “belongs to Caleb.”
