***
The truck’s headlights shone on the front porch as they pulled into her driveway. The front door of her house was ajar. The lights she’d left on in the house spilled through the opening and out into the yard.
“Oh, no, not again. I know I shut and locked that door before we left.” Abigail sighed. She’d put regular locks on her doors after the first break-in. “I guess I’m going to have to put super sturdy dead bolts on or get a whole house alarm system.” She knew the drill and let Frank enter the house first.
“It’s safe,” he yelled from inside. “There’s no one in here. Again.” But unlike the previous time nothing appeared touched or out of place. The house was as she’d left it. Snowball, a puddle of white, was sleeping on the couch.
“False alarm,” Frank announced, openly relieved. “You must have forgotten to lock the door and it just slipped open. Old doors do that sometimes. I’ll have a look at it before I head home.”
“No, it’s not exactly a false alarm.” Abigail was standing in front of the coffee table. “The diary’s gone. I left it right here on the table. It’s not here now.”
“Damn,” Frank said. “I really wanted to read it, even though earlier you summarized everything in it. How about the ledger, is it missing as well?”
She went out of the room and returned with the ledger. “No. I hid it somewhere safe days ago. They didn’t find it. But it’s all I have left. Besides the diary, the messages from the children are gone as well. I had them on my dresser in a large envelope. Nothing else is missing or disturbed.”
“Damn,” Frank whispered again.
“You’re right. There’s someone who doesn’t want us to learn anything more about the Summers or what happened to them. And unless a ghost floated in here and took those items, it was someone very much alive. What I’d like to know is, how did they know the house was empty?”
“They might have had it staked out. They saw us leave.” Their eyes met and Frank’s misgivings didn’t have to be put into words. He squeezed her hand for a moment as reassurance then released it.
“I really will have to be more careful.” She gave him the ledger. “Here take this with you. It’ll be safer at your place. Hide it well.”
“I will.” Frank produced a faint smile. “You still want to go tomorrow?”
“Of course,” her voice firm. “No one’s going to scare me off that easily. How about you?”
“Me, neither. So I’ll see you tomorrow morning. We’ll get breakfast on the way.”
“Tomorrow at nine.” Abigail walked Frank to the door, closed and locked it behind him. Then sat down at the kitchen table and wrote down every word, from memory, she could recall from Jenny’s diary and the crayon notes while they were fresh in her mind. If not the originals at least she’d have something to refer back to.
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