She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,129

letter on my bed.

The smaller envelope was sealed, about half the size of a normal one. The kind that usually held thank-you cards or other small notes. Auntie Jo had a box of them. She used to keep her tips organized by date and shift—she said this helped her figure out the best shifts to take and which to avoid. I’m not sure that really mattered. It seemed like she worked all the time regardless.

My name was printed on the front.

I tore the envelope open.

The page inside only contained fourteen words, but I probably read those words over and over again for the better part of an hour. Her handwriting was twitchy, barely legible, written close to the end of her life:

The box your father left for you? It’s in 68744. The worthless shit.

Jo

At some point, I sat on the edge of my bed. I didn’t remember doing that. My hand was shaking. The only sounds in my room were my deep breaths and the rapid thump in my chest.

The sun started to rise by the time I found the strength to get up and shove some clothes into my backpack. Ten minutes later, I crept across the floor of our apartment toward the door, carefully avoiding the noisier boards near the center of the room under the rug. In his room at the end of the hall, Willy still snored, and probably would for a few more hours—Sundays being one of the few days he slept in.

At first, the Prelude wouldn’t start. The engine coughed and sputtered, choking the winter from its throat. Then the motor caught with a single backfire. Once it turned over, the engine quickly smoothed out. Hondas were reliable that way.

I gave the gas pedal a few pumps, then backed out onto the deserted road.

My mind reeled, unable to put together a solid thought.

The box.

When I asked Auntie Jo about the box, she always denied it existed, said my father hadn’t given her anything before he died, nothing at all. I searched for years, more times than I could count. I’d never given up. I simply ran out of places to look.

Of course that’s where she would have hidden it. Nobody would look there.

I’d be in Pittsburgh in two and a half hours. In that time, I’d have to sort this out, figure out a next step.

68744 was the number of my father’s grave plot, one of those obscure facts Auntie Jo had drilled into me as a kid.

About an hour into the drive, I realized my “next step” wasn’t necessarily a single option of multiple options. I had no other options. I tried to think of something, anything at all other than the obvious choice, which clearly wouldn’t be a possibility for any sane person but slowly became one for me as I thought more and more about it. That realization didn’t help the churning in my stomach, the sour taste in my throat.

Auntie Jo wouldn’t lie about something like this. She hated my father, hated everything about him. But she wouldn’t lie about something this important, not to me.

The letter from Richard Nettleton to my father had been addressed to her.

I had always suspected that, on some level, Jo knew what was going on. Even if she hadn’t told me, the dream told me as much.

I knew the box was real, knew it, even if she denied it.

Her way of protecting me, waiting until I was old enough, I suppose.

The box was key, always had been.

But could I?

Could I dig up a grave?

My father’s grave?

If the box was there—and as the miles churned beneath the noisy wheels of my Honda, I became absolutely convinced that it was—could I leave the box hidden in his grave forever? Forget about it? What if someone else found it? Someone in a white coat?

What if (and this was a big what if), what if something in that box might help me find Stella?

I couldn’t forget about something like this.

I’d have to look.

The sane choice was to not dig up my father’s grave.

But digging was clearly my only choice.

Somehow, I made peace with that. My brain twisted and turned it, churned the facts until this was not only my only choice but the right choice, and one that could not wait.

At the turnoff for I-376, I stopped at a small hardware store in Hollidaysburg and bought a shovel. I couldn’t risk doing such a thing in Pittsburgh, where I might be recognized. The only hardware store near my