The click of the lock sounded louder than it should have.
Mara turned toward the door.
Evelyn had already walked away.
For a moment, Mara considered leaving anyway. The shop suddenly felt different from the street outside. The glass windows muted the noise of passing cars and footsteps. The warm lighting that had looked inviting from outside now made the boutique feel sealed off from the rest of the town.
“You said the coat was important,” Mara said.
“I said nothing of the sort.”
“You recognized the note.”
“I recognized the handwriting.”
“That isn't the same thing?”
“No.”
Evelyn walked toward a long wooden counter at the back. She opened a drawer and removed a ring of keys.
Mara followed.
“How old is this place?”
“Older than either of us.”
“The sign says 1923.”
“The sign tells the truth.”
“Do you?”
Evelyn stopped.
Mara immediately regretted the question, but Evelyn only gave her a tired look.
“Your grandmother used to ask questions like that.”
“What happened to her?”
“She survived.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It was the answer she gave whenever anyone asked about those years.”
Mara looked at the rows of clothing.
“What years?”
Evelyn selected a narrow brass key.
“The years when people discovered that keeping quiet could be more dangerous than speaking.”
She turned toward the rear of the shop.
Mara followed her through a narrow passage behind the clothing racks. The floorboards changed beneath their feet, from polished wood to older boards scratched by decades of use.
At the end stood a dark wooden door.
There was no handle.
Only a keyhole.
Evelyn inserted the brass key.
Before turning it, she said, “Once we open this room, you may not like what you find.”
“I didn't come here to like it.”
Evelyn turned the key.
The lock clicked.
The room beyond was smaller than Mara expected.
Shelves lined every wall. Boxes were stacked almost to the ceiling, each marked with dates and initials. Several garment bags hung from a metal rail. An old sewing machine sat beneath a dusty lamp.
Mara took one step inside.
The smell struck her first.
Lavender.
Her grandmother had smelled exactly like that.
Not perfume. Not soap.
The dry, faint scent of lavender sachets she used to keep inside drawers.
Mara's eyes filled before she could stop them.
“She was here,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
Mara turned sharply.
“You said you barely knew her.”
“I said I didn't know her.”
“That is different.”
Evelyn looked at the shelves.
“People can know someone's face without knowing what they've become.”
Mara moved toward the boxes.
One was marked E.B.
She touched it.
Evelyn said, “Don't.”
Mara withdrew her hand.
“Why?”
“Because your grandmother asked me to keep it closed.”
“She asked you?”
“Yes.”
“After she stopped coming here?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Then why did she send me?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“That is the question I have been asking myself since I saw you through the glass.”
Mara noticed another box on the lowest shelf.
It had no initials.
Only a date.
October 14, 1998.
Her breath caught.
“That year.”
Evelyn said nothing.
Mara crouched.
“What happened on that date?”
“Your grandmother came here.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to retrieve something.”
“What?”
Evelyn's eyes moved toward the garment bags.
Mara stood.
“Is it a dress?”
“No.”
“A coat?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Not exactly.”
She walked to the rail and pulled down one garment bag.
The zipper was stiff. She opened it carefully.
Inside was a cream-colored dress.
It was beautiful in a restrained, old-fashioned way. Fine stitching ran along the sleeves. Small pearl buttons traveled down the back.
Mara stared.
“This belonged to my grandmother?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
Evelyn didn't answer.
Mara moved closer.
There was a small embroidered letter inside the collar.
A.
Not Aurora.
Not Bennett.
Just A.
“Aurora?”
Evelyn shook her head.
Mara looked at the dress again.
“Then who?”
“Amelia.”
The name meant nothing to Mara.
But Evelyn's expression told her it should.
“Who was Amelia?”
Evelyn carefully returned the dress to its bag.
“Someone your grandmother loved.”
Mara waited.
Evelyn finally said, “And someone she believed she had betrayed.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Mara thought of her grandmother's last weeks.
She had been lucid until the end. Frustratingly so. She remembered birthdays, old neighbors, recipes, songs. Yet whenever Mara asked about her younger years, Eleanor would smile and change the subject.
“Why did she betray her?”
Evelyn's voice dropped.
“She didn't.”
Mara stared.
“You just said—”
“I said your grandmother believed she had.”
Mara looked at the boxes again.
“What happened to Amelia?”
Evelyn closed the garment bag.
“She disappeared.”
“Where?”
“We never found out.”
Mara felt a chill.
“When?”
“October 14, 1998.”
The same date.
The room seemed suddenly smaller.
Mara took the note from her pocket.
Bring the red coat when you finally come home.
She held it beside the cream dress.
“Why would my grandmother write this?”
Evelyn stared at the red coat.
“Because she knew you would eventually own it.”
Mara frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
“How?”
Evelyn walked toward an old wooden cabinet.
She opened the bottom drawer.
Inside lay a collection of photographs.
She selected one.
Mara recognized her grandmother immediately.
Younger by decades, dark-haired and smiling.
Beside her stood a woman Mara had never seen.
She wore the same cream dress.
Amelia.
Mara stared at the photograph.
“Who took this?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“The morning before she disappeared.”
Mara turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
She recognized her grandmother's script.
If anything happens, Aurora knows where to look.
Mara looked at Evelyn.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“I knew enough.”
“And you said nothing for twenty-eight years?”
Evelyn's face hardened.
“You think silence is always cowardice because you've never had to choose which life gets destroyed when the truth comes out.”
Mara flinched.
“Then tell me.”
“I can't.”
“You already have.”
“No.” Evelyn shook her head. “I have shown you pieces. That is not the same as telling you the truth.”
Mara placed the photograph on the table.
“What happened that night?”
Evelyn looked at the red coat.
“Your grandmother came here after closing.”
“Why?”
“She was frightened.”
“Of what?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Of a man named Julian Vale.”
Mara repeated the name.
“Who was he?”
“The owner of the building across the square.”
“And what did he have to do with Amelia?”
Evelyn looked toward the door.
“Everything.”
A sudden sound came from the shop outside.
Three slow knocks.
Mara and Evelyn both froze.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Evelyn's face changed.
“Who is that?”
Mara whispered.
Evelyn did not answer.
The knocking came again.
This time, a man's voice followed.
“Evelyn.”
Mara looked at her.
“You know him.”
Evelyn closed the cabinet.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“I am not hiding in a room while you face whoever that is.”
Evelyn stepped close enough that Mara could see the fear she had been hiding.
“If that man is who I think he is, you must do exactly what I tell you.”
The voice came again from beyond the locked door.
“Evelyn, I know she's inside.”
Mara's pulse raced.
Then the man added one sentence that made Evelyn turn white.
“Her grandmother promised me she would never bring that coat back.”
Click Here to continue read next: PART3: The Visitor Knows About the Red Coat, and Mara Begins to Understand Why Her Grandmother Never Trusted the Past
She Had Been Told the Boutique Was Closed, Yet the Woman Behind the Door Was Waiting for Her
Part 2 of 16
