Chapter 3: The Key to the Grandfather Clock
I stared at the desperate scrawl of my dead husband’s handwriting. The man I had just buried, the man I had mourned with every fiber of my being, was a stranger.
"I don't have anywhere else to go," Leo whispered, wiping a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand. "The landlord locked me out of our apartment this morning. I slept at the bus station last night so I could be here today. If you don't want me, I understand. I'll just go."
He turned toward the heavy oak door, his shoulders slumped in total defeat. He was the living, breathing evidence of my husband's ultimate betrayal. Looking at him brought a wave of nausea and unbearable pain.
But as his hand reached for the brass doorknob, I saw it. Poking out of his jacket pocket was a heavy, antique iron key.
"Wait," I said sharply. "Where did you get that key?"
Leo stopped, pulling it out. "Daniel gave it to me a few days ago. He said if anything happened, I had to give this to you. He said it opens the bottom panel of the grandfather clock in your living room."
My blood ran completely cold. The grandfather clock in our hallway. It had belonged to his family for generations. Daniel had always kept the bottom panel firmly locked, claiming the pendulum mechanism was dangerously fragile and could never be disturbed.
I walked over to the boy. I looked into his eyes—eyes that were so hauntingly similar to the man who had just broken my heart from beyond the grave. I didn't know what was inside that clock, but I knew Daniel well enough to realize the secrets were not over. Not yet.
"Come with me," I said, my voice finally steady, stripped of all grief and replaced by a cold, terrifying resolve.
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"Where are we going?" Leo asked hesitantly.
"We are going home," I replied, snatching the iron key from his hand. "We are going to open that clock, and we are going to find out exactly who the hell my husband really was."
