“What?”
“He never told me.”
Neither had Margaret.
Neither had anyone.
“I found out three weeks ago.”
“How?”
“I was looking for Christmas decorations. Margaret caught me moving the pantry shelves and completely lost it. I got curious.”
Two days later, while Margaret was out, she found the hidden door.
Downstairs were boxes belonging to a woman named Anna.
Photographs.
Clothes.
Books.
A wedding album.
Daniel smiling beside another bride.
“I confronted him,” Sophie whispered.
“What did he say?”
“That Anna was unstable. That she abandoned him after less than two years.”
“Why hide the marriage?”
“He said he was ashamed.”
Sophie looked toward the doorway.
“But I went back.”
“I knocked one of the boxes loose. I thought I’d steadied it.”
I stared at her. “That’s what fell during dinner?”
“It must’ve been.”
Inside one of Anna’s boxes, she’d found a wooden sewing case.
Taped beneath its bottom was an envelope.
“What was inside?”
“A letter.”
“For Daniel?”
Sophie shook her head.
“For whoever came after her.”
My skin prickled.
Sophie dried her hands.
“I put it back because I was scared Daniel would know I’d found it.”
“What did it say?”
She looked directly at me.
“The first line was, ‘If Daniel tells you I left him, he’s lying.'”
