Page 40 of The Locked Ward

I’m sitting cross-legged on the thin blue carpet of the office floor, holding his old tax returns, blinking at numbers that make no sense.

For most of his life, my father earned a salary that provided a comfortable but modest existence: food for us to eat and a mortgage on the little house where I grew up, but not a lot of extras. For vacations, we went camping, and new clothes were a rare splurge.

The outlier appeared thirty-two years ago—when I was born. My father’s income rocketed up. He made as much in that single year as he had in the previous four combined. Then his earnings immediately dropped back down to their baseline level.

My hands begin to shake as I try to absorb my new reality. What did my father do for that kind of money?

But that isn’t the only disturbing piece of evidence I’ve found. I’ve uncovered another staggering lie, one that sends a chill through my soul.

My father told me he worked as a bartender at Sweetbay’s until he had saved enough to buy the bar. But his true employer in the years prior to my birth is recorded as a company I’ve never heard of: Pecan Tree Corp. in Charlotte.

He bought Sweetbay’s shortly after I was born—during the same year his salary from Pecan Tree Corp. increased fourfold.

I google the company, but nothing turns up. It’s like a ghost corporation.

What did my father do for them? And why did he leave his job, move with my mother from Charlotte to our smaller town ninety minutes away, and buy the bar?

His entire life erupted, then quickly reformed into a calm new pattern.

The nexus of it all had to be my birth—and Georgia’s.

My mom and dad took me away while my twin remained in Charlotte with the Cartwright family. Both families buried the links between us, pretending only one daughter existed.

I drop my head into my hands, letting the tax returns flutter to the floor.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around the deceptions.

My father once ran down the street after a customer who’d left a fifty-dollar tip in case it was a mistake.

When I was six and stole a Snickers bar from a grocery store, my mother made me take it back and apologize to the manager.

How could people with that code of honor perpetuate such staggering fabrications?

Did I ever truly know them?

A memory flutters into my mind: the three of us side by side on the couch, watching a Tom Hanks movie when I was a preteen.

Monday night was our family movie night, because the bar was closed and we could all be home together.

I made popcorn—“Not too much butter for your dad, his cholesterol is getting high,” my mother said—and my father poured wine for my mom, popped the top of a Budweiser for himself, and got me a Sprite.

In the movie, Tom Hanks was alone on an island, struggling to survive.

“How long do you think you could last?” my father asked, bumping my shoulder with his.

“A year,” I said.

“Without cherry Slurpees? I’d give you six weeks,” he joked.

My mother swatted him with a pillow. “I’d make it a day,” she said. “You could do it, though, Ray.” My father was so handy and capable; he could build anything from a slingshot to a house.

“Maybe.” He kissed me on the forehead, his five-o’clock shadow scratching my skin, then kissed my mother on the lips. “But I wouldn’t ever want to without my girls.”

I blink back tears. I did know them. There has to be a good reason why they didn’t tell me. They weren’t just my parents; they were my best friends.

A sharp metallic noise makes my head jerk up. It sounded like it came from the alley behind my bar. Maybe a trash can lid clattered off in the wind. Or maybe someone bumped into a can.

I stay perfectly still, concentrating hard to see if I can detect another sound.

I’m the only one here. We closed up an hour ago and my staff left.

Only two dim security lights are on in the bar area, and though I haven’t yet set the alarm, the doors are locked.

It seems unlikely someone mistakenly thought we were still open.

The next noise I hear fires adrenaline through my limbs.

I keep a bell hanging over the front and back doorknobs. During quiet stretches, the jangling lets us know someone is turning the knob to enter. During crowded, noisy times, you can’t even hear it.

The back-door bell is jangling now. Someone is trying to get in.

I leap to my feet, running through the bar’s shadows toward the small safe I keep on a shelf beneath the counter. I press my hand against the safe to digitally unlock it. When the door glides open, I pull out my six-shot.

I crouch down low, moving to the end of the bar closest to the back entrance. My breathing is shallow, and my finger is steady on the safety, ready to release it. I angle myself until I can see the top of the back door and keep my eyes trained on it, waiting for the intruder to burst in.

My senses heighten. I can hear the distant roar of a car’s motor and smell the sharp tang of the cleaning solution that left my bar gleaming. My vision is adapting to the low light, allowing me to focus on the silver bell hanging from a thin leather strap on my back doorknob.

At any moment now, the door could fly open. But I’m not afraid. This is my bar. And I’ve had too much taken from me today.

I won’t hesitate to shoot.

But the bell remains still, the echo of its chimes fading from my mind.

I wait until my legs threaten to cramp, then slowly stand up, my gun still in my outstretched hand.

If someone was peering through a window, they could have seen me dart behind the bar. Maybe that’s why they stopped trying to get in.

I walk back into the office, holding my gun down at my side, and look at the files and papers covering the floor. There’s a lot more I need to dig through, but my concentration is shattered. I’ll come back in the morning, I decide.

I pick my iPhone off my desk and notice a text came in a little while ago. It’s a security alert from Google. It seems like someone was trying to hack into my computer.

I’ve gotten these alerts occasionally before. They’ve never caused me any real worry because I have a strong password and two-step authentication on my devices. I typically just change my password as a precaution. But the timing feels concerning.

I tuck my phone into my bag and lock the door to my office. My car is in the parking lot behind my bar. It’s the only vehicle in the lot. If someone is waiting for me, it won’t be hard for them to figure out my path.

So I switch up my routine. I set the bar’s alarm and exit out the front door.

The street is dark and quiet; no one else is around at this hour.

My gun feels steady in my hand as I sweep my head from left to right. I walk around the side of the building and take in the parking lot. My Honda is close to the back door, just as I left it. There’s no one lurking around it.

I walk toward it quickly, my head on a swivel, bracing for the sound of rushing footsteps. But I’m alone.

When I reach my car, I check my backseat before I slip inside. I set my gun down on the passenger’s seat and do a wide sweep around the parking lot, my headlights illuminating the dark corners. It’s empty.

Could I have been imagining the jangle of the bell? I have two security cameras at my bar, but they’re both inside. The footage won’t tell me anything.

I shake off my doubts. I know what I heard.

I drive home, acutely aware of the dark sedan that pulls up next to me at a stoplight. I turn to stare at the driver. It’s a middle-aged woman in the middle of a huge yawn. I keep my foot on the brake when the light turns, and she drives off ahead of me without ever looking my way.

Am I being paranoid? I wonder. A month ago, the jangling of the bell wouldn’t have alarmed me this deeply. But ever since I met Georgia, everything has changed.

I keep hearing her whisper, You have no idea how big this is.

I reach my building and park in my usual spot. Only a few lights are on in the ten-story structure. I keep my gun down by my side as I quickly walk to my apartment, feeling grateful for the proximity of my neighbors.

I step inside and look around. Everything is as it should be. My laptop is on the kitchen counter where I left it.

I go into my bedroom and put my gun in my nightstand drawer, then sink down on my bed to take off my shoes. In the wake of the adrenaline that flooded my body, fatigue is suddenly crashing down on me. All I want to do is brush my teeth and change into a T-shirt and boxers and collapse into bed.

I’m pulling off my jeans when I hear the unmistakable noise.

Four quick high beeps.

Blood rushes between my ears. I’m instantly wide awake again.

The sound is coming from my kitchen. I know exactly what it is. I’ve heard it before.

My refrigerator door doesn’t always catch, even when it looks closed. After several minutes, the beeps send an alert, pausing and repeating until the door is shut.

If someone was thoroughly searching my apartment and peered in the refrigerator, they might have left before the beeps began. They wouldn’t realize they’d left behind this clue.

I’m not being paranoid. Someone broke into my apartment tonight.