Leo sat up straighter, his nerves momentarily forgotten. “Wait. What letters?”
Lorraine had gone pale. Her usually serene, wine-sipping exterior cracked, and beneath it was something raw, something panicked. “Did they—did they burn?”
Patricia didn’t flinch. “Uh, no, it’s not.” Her voice was sharp, commanding. She crossed her arms, her whole body brimming with determination. “What letters, Dad?”
Richard’s jaw worked as if grinding his words into dust before speaking. His hands, usually so steady, flexed against the table’s surface.
Then, in a voice so low it was nearly swallowed by the room, he said, “They were important. Private.”
The air in the dining room shifted. Something heavy, something long-buried, was clawing its way to the surface.
Leo and Patricia exchanged a glance, their earlier mistake forgotten in the face of something far more intriguing.
Now this was interesting.
A week later, Leo and Patricia returned to what remained of the trailer. Or rather, the charred skeleton of it.
The air was thick with the acrid scent of burnt wood and melted plastic, the kind of smell that clung to clothes and refused to let go.
