Page 84 of Jayson
Growing up, I was never allowed near it. No reason given. Just a locked door, a warning look, and a bone-deep certainty that if I touched it, I wouldn’t like what I found.
Now? Ineedto know.
The door is still there, discreet and out of place, tucked behind the back stairs like an afterthought. Painted the same color as the wall—modern, sleek, intentional. It’s meant to disappear into the background, just like it always was.
But now, there’s something new. A padlock. Polished steel, heavy-duty. Gleaming like it was installed yesterday. Wrong.
The rest of the house may be pristine, but this? This looks out of place. This is someone trying too hard to keep something hidden.
Who puts a brand-new lock on a door in an empty house?
My fingers move on instinct. I reach up and tug two pins from my braid, twisting them free like I’ve done it a hundred times before.
Riley would’ve loved this.
She was the one who got me into spy movies—middle school, when we were bored out of our minds and pretending we were tougher than we were. We practiced on school lockers, teachers’ desks, even her mom’s bedroom drawer.
She’d grin, sticking her tongue out, and say,“One day, we’ll be real badasses.”
I swallow hard and kneel in front of the lock. She was halfway right. I’m not a badass. Not really. But I’m here. And I’m not leaving without the truth.
The padlock springs open with a metallic sigh that feels too loud in the hush of the hallway. My pulse dives straight to my stomach.
I ease the narrow door inward and breathe through the cold rush of air that spills out—damp, metallic, tinged with the faintest whiff of bleach. A waiting, surgical kind of smell.
One step… then another down a steep flight of unpainted wooden stairs. The single bulb overhead dangles on a frayed cord. I tug it; yellow light puddles over concrete walls and a packed-dirt floor that definitely never housed a wine collection.
No racks. No bottles. Just bare brick, a thin layer of dust, and secrets that feel thick enough to choke on.
Against the far wall sits a row of stacked cardboard boxes—cheap movers’ kind, masking-tape labels in my father’s cramped handwriting:KEIRA – HS,YEARBOOKS,TROPHIES. All the relics of a life he pretended not to care about, tucked away where no one would ever see them.
Curiosity swats aside dread for a heartbeat. I kneel, lift the top lid.
Inside: my letterman jacket, still smelling faintly of detergent; a cracked Polaroid of Riley and me in our 8th grade uniforms, tongues blue from endless slushies; a bundle of debate-team ribbons, edges curling; an old corsage turned to brittle paper. Little monuments to a time before everything splintered.
Why did he keep these? Why down here when we have an attic we usually store our history in?
I replace the lid, unsettled, and turn—and that’s when I see it: a glint in the far corner, half-buried in the dirt like a shard of moonlight.
I crouch, brush soil aside, and tug it free.
It’s a silver bracelet with a tiny infinity charm. Frayed pink thread is knotted between the links. My heart stops at the familiarity of the chain. Riley’s bracelet.
I know it immediately, because mine—its twin—still lives in my nightstand in my room upstairs. We braided them together in her bedroom the summer before junior high ended, promising never to take them off “unless the world ended.” She wore hers every day. Even the night she vanished.
And it’s here. In my father’s cellar.
The breath in my lungs turns to glass.
He knew.
He knew what happened to her.
Maybe… he did it.
I stumble back until my shoulder hits cold cement. A shiver rolls through me, nausea rising, but my fingers refuse to loosen around the bracelet.
A floorboard creaks overhead. Slow. Intentional. My head snaps up, blood roaring in my ears. Someone’s in the house.
