Page 28 of Our Darkest Summer

“Funny.” I turned away, running my fingers over the wall, while calming my thundering heart under my flesh.

“I’ll help,” he finally said, and I heard him move, his steps soft on the wooden floor. “If you tell me what exactly it is that you’re doing.”

“I’m searching for loose boards,” I replied, knocking on the next wooden panel.

Thomas didn’t react, and when I looked up at him, his brows were knotted, his eyes moving rapidly.

“The boards,” he muttered, his dark gaze landing on me. “It’s not the walls.”

He put aside the nightstand and pushed the bed to the wall, revealing the dusty floor underneath.Interesting. Every other aspect of the house was cleaned except for this.

“I remember seeing my mom crawl out from under here multiple times,” he explained, kneeling down and running his fingers over the floorboards. “It never seemed important.”

“A lot of people store old things under their bed,” I agreed, kneeling into the dust as well.

I knocked on the wood one by one, until one of the boards slightly moved under my touch. I leaned closer, knocking on it. The sound it made was hollow which meant it should have a hole under it. But when I tried to lift it, it was stuck.

Thomas, who probably heard the sound as well, shifted closer. “Let me try,” he said, then lifted the board away before I could even blink.

“Show off,” I muttered.

We both leaned above the gaping hole in the floor and Thomas reached into it, pulling out a stack of journals and an old camcorder. He took a hold of the latter and I curled my fingersaround a pastel green journal. I peaked at the first page just as Thomas reached down again.

“It ran out of battery,” he said. “And the charger is not here.”

He pulled his hand out of the hole, and I took the camera away from him, sending a photo of it to Connor.

ME

Any idea how we could access the data?

CON

well it looks old as shit, but usually you just have to take out the hard drive and transfer it to your computer.

I blinked. I didn’t understand a word he just wrote.

CON

I’ll check it when I get back.

“Connor’s on it,” I said putting the device aside.

At least this was something. My fingers brushed the golden flowers painted on the journal, and a lump formed in my throat. What if she wrote her deepest thoughts inside? It wasn’t like I was violating her privacy by reading this, right?

“What’s your theory?” I asked Thomas, who was already leafing through another journal.

He looked up at me, his hand stopping in the middle of a page turn.

“You told me you don’t believe she ran. So, what do you think?”

He stretched his neck, sizing me.

“What?” I asked after moments had passed and he was still just staring.

“I thought you looked into it,” he narrowed his eyes. “I’m just surprised.”

I wet my lips. “Well…I might’ve looked around, but I didn’t find a lot. Nothing you haven’t told me, anyway.”