Chapter 2 - The Phone That Should Have Been Buried
The phone rang again from inside the metal box.
I froze.
Not because I was afraid of the sound.
Because I knew that ringtone.
It was the one my father had used for me since I was sixteen.
A simple piano melody.
The same one he chose because he said he wanted me to know it was him before I even looked at the screen.
My hand hovered above the box.
The ringing stopped.
The house became silent again.
I looked toward the hallway.
Diane was still upstairs.
Or at least I thought she was.
I slowly opened the metal box.
Inside was an old black smartphone.
My father's phone.
The screen was cracked.
The battery indicator flashed red.
But it was still alive.
That was impossible.
Diane had told me my father had died a year ago.
She had told me everything was handled.
She had told me there was nothing left.
But here was his phone.
Hidden behind a wall.
Waiting for me.
I picked it up.
There were only three notifications on the screen.
One missed call.
One voicemail.
And one unread message.
All from the same number.
My number.
My breathing changed.
Someone had tried to contact me.
After my father's death.
I unlocked the phone.
The password was the first thing I tried.
His old military identification number.
It worked.
That hurt more than it should have.
My father had always been predictable with passwords.
He believed important things should be protected, but he also believed the people who loved him should still be able to find their way home.
The first thing I saw was the call history.
Hundreds of entries.
Most were normal.
Doctors.
Friends.
Former military colleagues.
Then I saw the final week before his supposed death.
The calls changed.
Almost every call was to one person.
Diane.
But the calls weren't short.
They lasted forty minutes.
An hour.
Sometimes longer.
I scrolled further.
The night before he died, there was a call lasting thirty-seven minutes.
The next morning, another call.
Three minutes.
Then nothing.
No calls.
No messages.
No activity.
I stared at the screen.
My father didn't just disappear.
Something happened.
I opened the voicemail.
The recording loaded.
For a second, I couldn't press play.
Because some part of me knew.
Whatever I heard next would change everything.
I pressed the button.
Static filled the room.
Then my father's voice appeared.
"Claire..."
I closed my eyes.
I hadn't heard his voice in three years.
Not a recording.
Not a memory.
His actual voice.
Older.
Tired.
But still him.
"If you're listening to this, something went wrong."
My eyes opened.
The words hit harder than I expected.
The recording continued.
"I don't know who you can trust."
A pause.
A deep breath.
"Especially not the people standing closest to me."
The message ended.
I played it again.
Then again.
Only twenty-two seconds.
That was all he left.
But it was enough.
My father had been afraid.
And he had been trying to warn me.
I looked at the phone.
Then at the empty room around me.
The house suddenly felt different.
Not like home.
Like a place where someone had been hiding something.
I opened the messages.
There were dozens.
Most were old.
But one message was different.
It had been scheduled.
Sent automatically after his death.
The date was one year ago.
The day Diane claimed he died.
I opened it.
The message contained only a photo.
My father's military ID card.
And below it were five words.
"Look where they don't want you."
I stared at the screen.
What did that mean?
I zoomed into the photo.
The ID card was lying on a table.
Behind it was a reflection.
A mirror.
A room.
Someone standing in the background.
I enlarged the image.
The quality was poor.
But I could make out a shape.
A person.
Watching my father.
I saved the image.
Then I heard footsteps.
I locked the phone immediately.
Diane appeared in the doorway.
She wasn't wearing the calm expression from earlier.
This time, she looked angry.
"What are you doing?"
I held the metal box in my hand.
"Looking for answers."
Her eyes moved to the phone.
Then back to me.
"You shouldn't have that."
That sentence told me everything.
Not "Why are you going through his things?"
Not "Where did you find that?"
Not even surprise.
You shouldn't have that.
Like the phone belonged to her.
Like I had stolen something.
"My father's phone was hidden inside a wall."
Diane stayed quiet.
"Why?"
She looked away.
"Claire, you're exhausted. You just came home."
"No."
I stood up.
"I'm asking a simple question."
She didn't respond.
"Why was my father's phone hidden?"
Her jaw tightened.
Then she said something I didn't expect.
"Because he was paranoid."
I stared at her.
"My father?"
"Yes."
"He was a decorated officer."
"He was also getting older."
The way she said it bothered me.
Not with sadness.
With irritation.
Like my father's fear had been an inconvenience.
I walked closer.
"When exactly did he start becoming paranoid?"
Diane crossed her arms.
"Months before he died."
"About what?"
Silence.
A long silence.
Then she said:
"I don't know."
That was another lie.
I knew it immediately.
Three years of military intelligence training had taught me how people behaved when they were hiding information.
Their words were usually controlled.
Their bodies weren't.
Diane looked toward the stairs.
She was thinking about leaving.
Changing the subject.
Ending the conversation.
I didn't let her.
"What happened the night he died?"
Her face changed.
Only for a moment.
But I saw it.
Fear.
"He had a heart attack."
"Who found him?"
Another pause.
"You did not answer my question."
She looked at me.
"I found him."
"When?"
"Early morning."
"Where?"
"In his office."
I looked around.
The office behind me.
The room where his phone had been hidden.
The room where his belongings had disappeared.
The room where someone had cleaned away pieces of his life.
"You said his office?"
"Yes."
"Then why was his phone behind the wall?"
Diane didn't answer.
The silence became the answer.
I walked past her.
Straight toward the office.
She followed.
"Claire, stop."
I opened drawers.
"Stop searching through things that are not yours."
I turned around.
"My father's house is not yours."
Her face hardened.
For the first time, the mask disappeared.
"You have no idea what you're walking into."
The words were quiet.
Almost a whisper.
But they weren't a warning.
They were a threat.
I studied her.
"Is that supposed to scare me?"
"No."
She looked at the phone in my hand.
"It's supposed to protect you."
That was the first thing she said all night that sounded almost honest.
Almost.
I searched the office again.
This time more carefully.
I checked the walls.
The floorboards.
The bookshelf.
Then I noticed something strange.
The old military portrait of my father was slightly crooked.
I removed it from the wall.
Behind it was a small hole.
Inside was a folded piece of paper.
My hands went cold.
I opened it.
My father's handwriting.
Three lines.
Claire,
If Diane tells you I died naturally, don't believe her.
Find Michael Reed.
He knows what happened.
I stopped breathing.
Michael Reed.
My father's closest friend.
His former commanding officer.
A man who had attended my graduation.
A man who disappeared from our lives two years ago.
Before I could read anything else, the paper slipped from my hand.
Because Diane had seen the name.
And her face had turned completely pale.
"Where did you hear that name?"
I looked at her.
"Who is Michael Reed?"
She stepped backward.
And then, for the first time since I came home, Diane looked genuinely terrified.
Because she wasn't afraid of me.
She was afraid of what I was about to find.
I reached for my phone to call him.
But before I could press the number, an unknown message appeared on my father's phone.
One sentence.
May you like
One name.
"Claire, don't trust Michael Reed."
