CHAPTER 6
863 Words
Eva did not call the number on the card.
Not immediately.
She had learned long ago that haste was a luxury. Instead, she spent the night sitting in her son’s room, surrounded by the quiet evidence of a life she thought she understood.
The room was untouched. Bed neatly made. Desk arranged with the careless precision of youth. Books stacked unevenly, some open, some abandoned halfway through. A jacket hung over the back of the chair, still carrying the faint scent of his cologne.
Eva picked it up before she could stop herself.
Grief arrived swiftly then—sharp and breath-stealing—but she pressed it down. There would be time for mourning later. Right now, she needed truth.
She sat at his desk and opened the laptop.
The password took three tries.
Her anniversary date didn’t work. Neither did his birthday. On impulse, she typed her own initials.
The screen unlocked.
Eva closed her eyes briefly.
Of course.
The desktop was ordinary at first glance. School files. Music folders. Photos she had seen before. She opened his email next, scanning subject lines quickly.
Then she saw it.
A secondary inbox.
Hidden, encrypted, buried beneath layers of casual normalcy.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened it.
The messages were sparse. Short. Coded in a way that suggested understanding rather than explanation.
It’s done.
He’s asking questions.
You shouldn’t be involved.
I don’t have a choice.
Eva’s chest tightened.
This was not curiosity.
This was participation.
She leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling, piecing together fragments she had dismissed for years. Late nights. Sudden trips. The way her son had once asked too carefully about his father’s work.
The boy had not been reckless.
He had been protecting something.
Or someone.
Her gaze drifted to the bookshelf. One book sat apart from the others, its spine cracked, its pages worn. She pulled it free.
Inside, folded carefully between pages, was an ID card.
Not his name.
Not his photograph.
But unmistakably his face.
Eva’s breath hitched.
This was not a prank. Not a fantasy. The card was official, its edges worn from use. She traced the outline with her thumb, her mind racing.
Her son had been living two lives.
A knock at the door startled her.
“Mrs. Harrington?” the housekeeper called softly. “There’s someone on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”
Eva stood slowly, tucking the card into her pocket. “Who is it?”
“He didn’t say,” the woman replied. “But… he knew your son’s name.”
Eva felt the shift immediately. That quiet click inside her chest—the sound of resolve locking into place.
“I’ll take it,” she said.
She closed the door behind her and lifted the receiver.
“Mrs. Harrington,” a man’s voice said. Older. Controlled. Familiar in a way she couldn’t immediately place. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“You’re not disturbing me,” Eva replied. “You’re explaining.”
A pause.
“I worked with your son,” the man said finally.
Eva closed her eyes.
“In what capacity?” she asked.
“Unofficially,” he replied. “And against my better judgment.”
“Start from the beginning,” Eva said. “Or hang up.”
The man exhaled. “Your husband was preparing to expose something. He didn’t trust the system, and he was right not to. Your son found out. He insisted on helping.”
“Helping how?”
“He acted as a buffer,” the man said quietly. “A messenger. A safeguard. Someone they wouldn’t suspect.”
Eva’s hand tightened around the receiver.
“They suspected him anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Was he the target?” she asked.
Another pause—longer this time.
“No,” the man said. “But once they realized who he was… they couldn’t leave him alive.”
Silence filled the room.
Eva felt something fracture—not loudly, not violently, but completely. The illusion she had carried of innocence, of separation, dissolved.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” she asked.
“Because he wouldn’t let me,” the man replied. “He said you deserved the truth—even if it came too late.”
Eva hung up without another word.
She stood alone in the room, the walls suddenly too close, the air too thin. Her son had not been collateral.
He had been involved.
Brave. Loyal. Dead.
And her husband had known.
Slowly, Eva sat back down at the desk and opened the drawer she had avoided.
Inside lay a notebook she had seen a hundred times but never opened.
This time, she did.
On the first page, in her son’s handwriting, were four words:
If you’re reading this…
Eva closed the book.
Not yet.
Some truths needed space before they were faced.
She rose and walked to the window. Outside, the world continued—cars passing, people laughing, life indifferent to what it had taken from her.
They had underestimated her husband.
They had misjudged her son.
And they had not accounted for her.
That would be their final mistake.
- Writer
