At my father’s funeral, the last thing I expected was for the groundskeeper to detach himself from the shadows of the oaks, tug off his worn leather gloves, and beckon me with the gravity of a long-lost relative. His brass nameplate read Silas, and his skin was as lined and grey as the headstones surrounding us.
“Ma’am,” he whispered, his eyes darting toward the mahogany casket, “your father paid me a year’s salary to bury an empty box today.”
I stared at him, my vision blurring. I assumed the heat and the grief were finally inducing a breakdown.
“That’s a cruel joke, Silas.”
He didn’t blink. Instead, he pressed something cold and heavy into my palm. A steel key. Attached to it was a plastic tab with a single, handwritten number: 42.
“Don’t go back to the wake,” he rasped. “Go to Bayview Wharf, Locker 42. Go now.”
Before I could breathe, my phone shivered in my black clutch. My heart nearly stopped when I saw the caller ID. It was a text from Dad.
Stay away from the house. Go to the water.
My father had been declared dead ten days ago. I had seen the charred remains of his car at the bottom of the Blackwood Ravine. I had identified his watch. I had signed the death certificate.
And now, his name was flickering on my screen as if he were simply checking in after a business trip.
I looked up to demand an explanation, but Silas was already gone, disappearing into the maintenance shed. The priest was finishing the benediction. My sister was sobbing into her veil. No one had seen a thing.
I didn’t stay for the reception. I slipped the key into my pocket, walked to my car, and drove away from the cemetery before the first wreath was laid.
The Shadow at Bayview
Locker 42 was located in a rusted storage complex on the industrial edge of Port Haven, wedged between the shipyards and the salt marshes. The sign above the gate, SEA-GUARD STORAGE, hummed with a faulty neon light.
My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears as I turned the key. The lock groaned, then gave way.
I slid the corrugated door up just enough to scramble inside. It wasn’t a storage unit; it was a survival cell. There was a sleeping bag, a solar lantern, a stack of protein bars, and a battered leather briefcase—the one my father took to every board meeting at Vanguard Holdings.
An envelope was taped to the handle. For Maya. The lie started long before the crash.
As my fingers touched the paper, the sound of tires on wet pavement echoed through the metal corridor outside. A silver sedan with blacked-out windows pulled into the lane. It didn’t park; it idled, the engine a low, predatory growl.
Instinct, sharp and cold, took over. I yanked the door down and sat in the dark, my back against the cold metal.
Thud. A car door. Then another.
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