Chapter 1 - THE EMPTY GRAVE
The first thing my stepmother said after I spent three years in prison was, “Your father is dead, Finnley. This house belongs to me now.”
No hello.
No sympathy.
Not even the decency to look ashamed.
Reagan Dennis stood behind the new black front door wearing an emerald dress and pearl earrings. She looked like she was greeting an unwanted delivery, not the stepson whose life had been torn apart.
I carried everything I owned in a faded backpack.
For 1,095 nights at Oakwood Prison, I had pictured my father waiting for me in his worn leather chair.
“Hang in there, son,” Camden Dennis always said in my imagination. “The truth finds its way out.”
That belief kept me alive.
Now Reagan was telling me he had died without saying goodbye.
“When?” I asked.
“A year ago. Cancer.”
“And no one told me?”
“You were in prison for stealing from him.”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“You said that at your trial.”
Movement behind her caught my eye.
My stepbrother, Carter, came down the stairs wearing my father’s gold watch. Three years earlier, Carter had been drowning in gambling debt. Now his shirt probably cost more than everything in my backpack.
“The criminal returns,” he said. “Let me guess. You want your inheritance.”
“I want to see Dad’s room.”
Reagan blocked the doorway.
“I remodeled it.”
“What did you do with his things?”
“Whatever I wanted. They became mine when he died.”
I took one step forward.
Her hand moved toward the phone on a table inside.
“You’re on parole,” she said quietly. “If I tell the police you threatened me, who do you think they’ll believe?”
Carter smiled.
They wanted me angry.
Prison had taught me that anger was a weapon people could make you use against yourself.
I stepped back.
“Where is he buried?”
Reagan’s confidence flickered.
“Pinecrest Cemetery.”
“I’m going there.”
“You should let the past stay buried.”
“That sounds like a warning.”
I walked six miles to Pinecrest.
My father had always said he wanted to be buried beside my mother, but the ground next to her headstone was untouched.
An elderly groundskeeper found me searching the rows.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked.
“Camden Dennis.”
The color drained from his face.
“You’re Finnley.”
“How do you know my name?”
He checked the cemetery entrance, then led me behind a maintenance shed.
“Your father gave me something for you.”
He pulled a yellow envelope from inside his jacket. It contained a brass key marked STORAGE UNIT 108 and a letter written in my father’s hand.
The first line stopped my heart.
Son, if you’re reading this, Reagan has already started lying to you.
I looked up.
“Where is my father?”
The groundskeeper lowered his voice.
“I don’t know. But I saw him six months after Reagan announced his death.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“He was alive?”
“He was scared. He said Unit 108 contained the truth about what happened to you.”
A car door slammed near the cemetery entrance.
The groundskeeper looked past me and went pale.
“You need to run.”
May you like
A man in a dark jacket was walking toward us.
And Carter was right behind him.
