“To this house?” I asked.
Dad nodded.
“He was upset.”
“About what?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“You never mentioned this.”
“Because I didn’t think it mattered.”
Dad glanced toward the garage again.
“He asked whether he could leave the roadster here for a few days. Said he didn’t want it at his house.”
“Why?”
“I asked. He told me I worried too much.”
That sounded exactly like Uncle Michael.
Dad continued.
“When he picked it up, he said something strange.”
“What?”
Dad’s eyes met mine.
“He said if anything ever happened to him, I should keep the car.”
Mom frowned.
“You told me he left it to you.”
“He did. In the will.”
“But he said that before?”
“Yes.”
A heavy silence followed.
Then Mason’s phone buzzed.
All of us looked down.
Ryan’s name appeared on the screen.
Mason didn’t touch it.
The buzzing stopped.
A second later, a message appeared.
Mason read it.
His face changed.
“What?” Dad asked.
Mason turned the phone over.
The message contained six words.
DID SHE FIND IT IN TIME?
Nobody spoke.
My heart hammered.
“Find what?” Mom whispered.
Mason shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Dad reached for his jacket.
I stood.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“We need to check the car.”
“We need to check what happened tonight first.”
Dad paused.
I surprised myself.
Every instinct in the room had turned toward the mystery.
Ryan’s hidden key.
My uncle.
The message.
But another truth was still sitting in the middle of the kitchen.
Ryan had hurt me.
And I knew how easily mysteries could become excuses.
Maybe even for me.
“If we start chasing whatever Ryan was looking for,” I said, “then tonight becomes about the car.”
Dad’s expression softened.
“You’re right.”
“I need to know what I’m doing next.”
Mom nodded immediately.
“You’re not sleeping here alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“I mean emotionally.”
I managed a weak smile.
“I don’t think that’s how sleeping works.”
“It is tonight.”
Dad pulled out another chair and sat.
The mystery would wait.
For once, I would not.
We called a doctor who was a family friend.
He came to the house and examined my cheek, lip, shoulder, and wrist.
Nothing was broken.
My face would bruise.
My wrist was mildly sprained.
He documented everything carefully and told me that whether I chose to report what happened was my decision.
Dad stayed silent.
I appreciated him for that.
Mom canceled the engagement party.
She didn’t explain why.
She simply called the caterer and said there had been a family emergency.
That phrase moved through the house like a strange mercy.
A family emergency.
Not scandal.
Not failure.
Not humiliation.
Just something painful that required attention.
Ryan left sometime after ten.
I didn’t see him go.
Part of me wanted to.
Part of me wanted one last look at the man I had nearly married.
Another part knew I had already spent too long studying his face for clues about who I was allowed to be.
At eleven thirty, I went upstairs.
