The Letters We Were Meant to Find

Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

The underground parking garage beneath Jinhai International Hospital was almost empty when Amara arrived. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting pale reflections across the polished floor. She tightened her grip around the small brass key Ruth had left for her and glanced over her shoulder before walking toward the row of old staff lockers.

Locker 17 was at the very end.

Her heart began to pound.

She inserted the key and turned it slowly. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the lock clicked.

Inside was a thin black folder, an old cassette tape, and a photograph.

Amara picked up the photograph first.

Her hands began to tremble.

It showed her father standing beside Daniel Kwon twenty years earlier. Between them stood Ruth, much younger than Amara remembered from the voice on the phone. But there was something else in the photograph that made Amara's breath catch.

Behind them was a fourth man.

The same man whose face had been scratched out of her mother's photograph.

She opened the folder.

The first page contained only one sentence:

SAMUEL LIN DID NOT DISAPPEAR. HE WAS TAKEN.

A sound echoed behind her.

Amara froze.

Someone was walking toward her.

She quickly grabbed the folder and photograph and stepped into the darkness between the parked cars.

Then she heard a man's voice.

“Amara?”

She knew that voice.

Ethan.