The Truth About Us

by Tia Souders

  The key.

  GG’s letter flashed in her head.

  Go to my house and find the key to my safety deposit box at the bank. I kept everything hidden there...in a small metal tin, buried in the backyard under my daisies.

  Was he burying something or digging it up? Could it be the key?

  A lump of dread settled in the pit of her stomach.

  This was nothing, she told herself—a coincidence—but she knew better. What were the chances on the very same day she came to find her grandmother’s next clue that her grandfather would beat her to it?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It couldn’t be the key he was looking for. Right?

  But why was her eighty-seven-year-old grandfather out there in the middle of the day, either retrieving something from the ground or hiding it?

  “Uh, is everything okay?” Kaden asked.

  Abby blinked. Glancing at him, she murmured. “Um, yeah. Sorry.”

  Pulling forward, she passed her grandparents’ property and parked in the neighbor’s driveway, a couple whom Abigail knew well, and who she also knew wouldn’t be home for a while since they both worked in the city.

  She killed the engine and motioned for Kaden to follow her. “Come on.”

  She stepped out of the car and brought a finger up to her lips, signaling his silence before waving him on as she moved quietly over the lawn that separated their yards, grateful for the cover of the huge, old maple trees and pines. The branches blocked her from view, providing her with a safe place to watch.

  With his back to them, her grandfather scooped more dirt over the freshly turned earth. Only a moment passed before he compressed the loose earth with the back of his shovel and rested his weight on the handle as he stared at his handiwork.

  Even from a distance, Abby noted his shirt, soaked with sweat. His arms shook from the exertion.

  When he turned and glanced in her direction, she ducked back behind the pine, her heart galloping in her chest. After a moment, she peeked across the yard again to find her grandfather ambling his way to the pool house on shaky legs. He returned the shovel to the squat shed, then clapped his hands to remove the caked-on dirt and rounded the house, where she assumed he would get in his car to leave.

  Abby’s ears perked, as she listened and waited for the telltale sound of the engine. The purring of his car came to life before it faded into the distance.

  She shot across the wide expanse of lawn and came to a stop in front of the spot where he worked. Behind her, Kaden’s labored breath filled the silence.

  “Can I ask why we just spied on an old man from the trees?” he asked.

  “That old man was my grandfather.”

  “And that makes this any less weird how?”

  Abby turned toward the pool house and called behind her, “Because I wanted to see what he was doing.” She swung the heavy doors open and retrieved the shovel inside. Kaden watched as she strode back to him and began to dig. “He either took something or he’s hiding something, and I’m going to find out what it is,” she said, though her gut told her the little tin her grandmother mentioned in her letter would be missing.

  “Okay.” Kaden shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

  She scooped the freshly turned earth. One after another, she shoveled as Kaden watched on.

  “Can I just say this makes me super uncomfortable. I mean, you’re not lying about this being your grandfather’s house, right? It seems weird. Us spying on him. Now, you’re digging in the backyard.” Kaden scratched his head as Abby glanced back at him while she worked.

  She didn’t have time to reassure him right now.

  Chink.

  Her shovel hit something hard. She moved the blade over the dirt until she revealed a small rectangular box made of metal. Her eyes widened as she dropped the shovel and sunk to her knees. Using her nails, she scraped the object from the earth. The tin was the kind that was typically filled with cookies at Christmas, and it was buried, just like her grandmother said.

  Kaden’s eyes brightened with interest. “What is it?”

  “A clue.”

  She flexed her fingers, poised over the lid. Ready.

  She flicked it open and exhaled. The key.

  She had expected there to be nothing—assuming her grandfather had come here to retrieve it, but it was still here. So, what had he been doing?

  “What is it?” Kaden asked, craning his neck to see.

  Abby blinked up at him. “A key,” she said, trying to make sense of what her grandfather had been doing there if not retrieving the key.

  She stared at the freshly dug earth and frowned. “Maybe he was returning it,” she mumbled.

  “Okay, sounds like you expected the key to be missing once you saw your grandfather digging here? I’m lost. Give me something.”

  Sighing, she said, “My grandmother told me to come here, that she had buried the key to her safety deposit box in a tin, in the backyard, under the daises.”

  “Your grandmother told you. Like, before she died?”

  “No. After.”

  Kaden’s brow furrowed above his narrowed eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay? Because if you’re grandmother’s speaking to you from the dead, then I’m a little concerned.”

  “Not in person. In a letter. She gave a letter to her lawyer to give to me. More than one, actually. And—”

  “Hold up.” Kaden held up a hand and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he crouched down to where she sat and took the tin from her. “Set the thing with your grandfather aside for a moment. You said this was supposed to be some sort of clue? A key to a safety deposit box?”

  “Yeah,” she said like it was obvious.

  “Okay. Well, this isn’t a safety deposit box key.”

  “What? Why? How do you know?” Scrambling to her knees, she took the key from him and examined it closer, looking for something he saw that she hadn’t. Written across the head of the key in big block letters was the word Safekeep.

  He pointed to it. “I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure they’re smaller. This is a standard key, like to a door or a house or something. Safety deposit boxes are usually like a shoe box and so the locks are smaller. Usually it’s a small key. Plus, it would have a tag of some sort on it, saying the box number or the name of the bank.”

  “So, if it’s not the key to her safety deposit box, then what’s it for? And why in the world was he burying it? Why is the key I came to find missing?”

  Abigail tapped the side of the key as she stared at the hole in the ground, trying to make sense of it all. The only explanation she could think of was that he took the key she needed, and he either replaced it with this one or this key had been here as well.

  But if he did take the safety deposit box key, why? Did GG send him a letter, too? Was this some kind of game from the grave? Give family members clues to a secret and see who wins first? Were they competing for some mystery prize? Maybe at the end of it all, she’d find out it was all just a ruse, something to take the edge off her death. But a competitive scavenger hunt didn’t seem like GG’s style.

  Fiddling with the key, she squinted at the ground. “I’m not crazy, right? It’s weird for someone, especially an old man, to be out here burying a key. Did he swap them out? Why would he do that? No one would, unless...”

  “They never wanted anyone to find it,” Kaden answered for her. “Or maybe he thought you wouldn’t know the difference. Obviously, he wants to ensure no one ever finds either this key or the other one.”

  Abigail bit the inside of her cheek. Something told her this key—though not the one she came for—held the truth, more clues than she could ever imagine. But she had no idea what it was for, and she had a hard time imagining her grandfather doing anything in secret.

  “I don’t know. That doesn’t seem right. I mean, he’d have to know I’d take this to the bank, and when it didn’t work, I’d know it was the wrong key. There must be a reason he put th
is here. Maybe he knew I was coming. Maybe this holds more answers than the other. There has to be some significance, but why not just come out and tell me? Why sneak around?”

  “Beats me, since I have no clue what’s going on,” he said, his tone conveying his irritation. “But maybe he’s sneaking around for the same reasons you are.”

  “That would mean he’s getting letters, too. And he was told to keep it a secret.”

  With a sigh, Abby plopped back down on her butt. Her gaze shifted over her dirt-smudged jeans, to her filthy shoes, and the swimming pool behind her. She was not ready to spill her guts to a boy she had no reason to trust yet knowing she had to.

  Her bones felt heavy, and her head ached with an oncoming headache. Her eyelids drooped, begging for sleep, and her racing mind needed a break. She wanted this hunt—whatever it was—to be over, so she could grieve her grandmother and move on with her life, even though she wasn’t sure she knew how. Though unraveling a family secret distracted her from the weight in her chest and the heaviness in her heart, facing her feelings was inevitable. The weariness in her soul only heightened the stress of bearing the burden of truth.

  She needed to uncover the secret. The sooner the better. And despite her grandmother’s instructions for her to tell no one, she knew this was one request she could no longer honor.

  The hunt for information pressed on her shoulders like a thousand lies until she thought she might crumple under the weight.

  She took a shaky breath, then found Kaden’s eyes, locking them with her own. “I’ll tell you what’s going on now. But it’s a secret-within-a-secret. One you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Okay.” He sat across from her.

  His fierce gaze settled on hers. Though she was taking a risk—a giant leap—she felt in her bones she could trust him. Her secret would be safe.

  With a silent prayer she was making the right choice, she took a leap of faith and jumped in the raft head-first, waiting for the waves to guide her.

  THE RICH BROWN OF KADEN’S eyes mesmerized her, stealing her breath. She remembered a conversation with her grandmother—where she told Abby about the first time she met her grandfather, how she fell for him in a single moment.

  It was at a little café where we first met. I spilled my drink on him in my haste to get out the door, and he spoke to me in that thick German accent of his, telling me it was fine.

  I was so embarrassed though, so when he offered to buy me lunch, I accepted. He told me all about his coming to America and how in the last year he had tirelessly studied English, so he could get a job and better fit in. He never spoke of the war, but he didn’t need to. I saw the numbers on his arm, along with the scar under his neck.

  When he looked me in the eye, everything else melted away. I knew nothing would ever be the same again. It was like seeing clear inside him to every secret place in his heart. It’s true what they say, the eyes are the window to the soul. All his pain, his hardships, and fears stared back at me. It’s part of the reason I never pushed him on speaking about his past. Why make him talk when I could see the scars of his past every day in the sadness of his eyes?

  One day, Abigail, you’ll meet the right one. You’ll just look into his eyes and know.

  At the time, Abby thought her grandmother was full of it, but now, as she spilled her truth to Kaden and told him everything from the first letter in the jewelry box to the creepy old man with the journal, Lawson’s murder, and the final letter, she sunk farther. He listened—without comment, without hesitation—he listened to her spill the events of the past week since her grandmother’s death, and somehow Abigail didn’t think her grandmother’s words that day, years ago, were so lame anymore.

  Steeling herself for his reaction, she watched as he absorbed the information. She could practically see the wheels spinning in his head.

  “So, let’s break this down. Be pragmatic about it,” he said, and she couldn’t help her responding grin because she had already grown to appreciate how he could switch from teasing to serious at the drop of a dime.

  “Okay,” she said, noting the way the corner of his eyes crinkled when he concentrated.

  “You’re to unravel this secret, whatever it may be, and she’s giving you clues. Right?” he asked.

  “Right.”

  “And this safety deposit box key was supposed to be the next clue. But it’s missing.”

  “Exactly,” she said, leaning her weight back on her hands.

  “Let’s set this key aside, because we have no idea what it’s for or if it even has anything to do with the secret. And let’s set the fact that your grandfather was out here digging aside, too, because short of confronting him about it, we have no idea if he swapped the keys out, took the key, or maybe was also looking for the same key, only to find it missing.”

  “True.” Abigail bit her lip. Everything in her told her this key, the one she found, was important, but Kaden was right. Until she knew what it was for, she’d be wasting her time trying to figure it out. It could unlock anything, and something told her questioning her grandfather about it wasn’t the right move. After all, her GG told her to keep this all a secret, and Abby had no idea what her grandfather knew, if anything. She already spilled to one person, but Kaden was an outsider—unbiased. Her grandfather was not.

  “So, setting the key aside, what we do know is that there’s a secret.” Kaden held up a finger. “We know it likely has something to do with your family’s past, history, or family tree. Those aren’t facts but what we can piece together so far from the letters. We know she hired a private investigator to research your family tree and find long-lost relatives from your grandfather’s side,” he said, counting on his fingers as he spoke. “We believe the investigator to be Lawson but have no official confirmation. But Lawson was murdered so we can’t go straight to him and ask. We know she found someone she thought was a relative. We only know the meeting didn’t go well. We know she has ties to the Holocaust Museum, and we have the journal. That’s it. That’s a lot of unknowns,” Kaden said, still holding up his fingers.

  “That’s also a lot of ‘we’s,’” Abigail said, finding it difficult to feel discouraged because the relief of having someone to figure this puzzle out with was far greater than her disappointment at the lack of facts. The idea of being a team sparked some dormant need inside of her she couldn’t understand.

  Kaden shrugged. “Hey, you decided to confide in me, and I take secrets seriously.”

  Abby narrowed her eyes. “I thought you said you’ve never had to keep a real secret before?”

  “Exactly. So, this is like the Muhammad Ali of all secrets. Besides, I like puzzles.”

  “Dork.” Abigail nudged his arm.

  “Maybe I’m a dork,” Kaden said, his eyes teasing. “But I’m a dork who happens to have a connection to the Fairfax police department, which might just help us get some answers about Lawson and his death. Maybe your suspicions are right, and there’s something there.”

  “Oh my gosh!” She hadn’t even thought about his dad being a police officer and being able to help. “Yes, yes!” Adrenaline shot through her veins. Reaching out, she squeezed his arm. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that when you mentioned it earlier. I’m so excited I could kiss you!”

  The words flew from her mouth before she could suck them back in. Her face turned crimson, wishing she could melt like hot wax into the dirt around her. “You know, metaphorically speaking, of course.” She jerked her hand away like he caught fire and avoided his gaze.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to let her off that easy.

  “Well, if I had known helping you would earn me kisses, I would’ve forced you to tell me what was going on the other day at your house. Or the night at the park, for that matter.” His grin fell, and his expression turned serious as he added, “Actually, if you’re paying your debts to me in kisses, I think you owe me one for helping you with your calc homework.”

  Abby scoffed. “I drove you to
school, so maybe you’re the one that owes me a favor.”

  “Just say the word, and I’ll give you as many kisses as you want.”

  Abby crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, trying her best to ignore the ball of heat igniting in her chest and hating how red she was certain her cheeks were.

  “Not today, then?” he asked. When Abby narrowed her eyes further, Kaden laughed. “Fine. No kisses. At least not now. But I’m telling you, Abby Bridges.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping an octave, his warm breath caressing her ear as he whispered. “We may both be socially awkward, but you are going to kiss me. Soon enough, you won’t be able to help yourself.”

  Abby’s breath caught in her throat, but her better senses prevailed, and she whacked him in the arm. “Speak for yourself. Would you please focus?”

  For someone who didn’t have a social life, Kaden had no problem putting it out there.

  He raised his hands in defense. “Sorry. You bring it out in me. Back to the problem at hand...”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’ll just need to talk to my dad. See what we can find out.”

  He fidgeted, scratching the back of his neck, and Abigail remembered the conversation she walked up on this morning—the one where his father didn’t want him distracted and hanging out with some girl in his free time.

  “Wait. How’s he going to react to you trying to help me?” Abby asked.

  “I don’t know. But I guess we’re going to find out.”

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “What? Talk to my dad?” Kaden raised a brow.

  “Yeah. Talk to your dad. Help me. Any of it. You don’t have to. I’ll figure it out on my own eventually. If you’d rather keep your focus on nothing but school like your dad wants, I would totally understand. I mean, we skipped school today and—”

  “Abby...”

  Abigail bit her lip, bracing herself for what he might say. How could she hate the thought of him not helping her when she only confided in him minutes ago?