CHAPTER 4: THE PAPER INSIDE THE WALL
My father used the smallest bedroom as an office.
He kept the walls painted pale green because Laurel had chosen the color when we were children.
I had avoided the room since moving in.
That afternoon, I sat at his desk and opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was a stack of letters bound with a red rubber band.
The top envelope bore my name in his careful handwriting.
I had seen it before and refused to read it.
After Patricia’s outburst, I broke the seal.
The letter began with an apology that made me angrier than I expected.
My father admitted that he had allowed me to believe Laurel left because of our family argument.
He wrote that he had withheld information because he was frightened of what knowing it would do to me.
Then he directed me to remove the wooden panel behind the shelf where he kept his watchmaking tools.
I found a narrow compartment hidden between two studs.
Inside lay a manila folder, a disposable camera, and a sealed envelope addressed to a woman named Claire Warren.
My hands went cold when I saw that name.
Claire Warren had been Laurel’s closest friend in high school.
I hadn’t heard her name spoken in nearly twenty years.
The folder contained copies of money orders sent to a post office box in another state.
The earliest payment had been made three weeks after Laurel disappeared.
The last had been mailed six months before my father died.
Every payment was signed by Thomas Mercer.
The sums were small, but they arrived regularly for more than two decades.
The photographs from the disposable camera showed a teenage Laurel standing beside a lakeside cabin.
In one image, Patricia Voss stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder.
I stared at the picture until the green walls seemed to tilt.
Patricia had told me she barely knew my sister.
She had also just smashed my mailbox to reach an envelope.
I picked up my phone and called Officer Ortiz.
