"Old Mill Tavern."
Another pause.
"Are you alone?"
Mara looked across the parking lot.
"Yes."
"Then listen carefully. Don't go home."
Mara's fingers tightened around the brass key.
"Why?"
"Because if they found you, they may already know where Daniel hid it."
Mara stopped breathing for half a second.
"Who?"
The woman didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she whispered:
"Do you still have the key?"
Mara looked down.
Rain ran over the brass surface.
"Yes."
"Then you need to leave. Now."
The call ended.
Mara stood beneath the tavern lights, listening to the rain.
Five years.
Five years since Daniel's death.
Five years since she had heard anyone mention the one thing she had tried hardest to forget.
The key.
She slipped it into her pocket.
Then she heard an engine.
Not a car.
A motorcycle.
Mara turned.
At the far entrance of the parking lot, a black pickup had stopped.
Its headlights were pointed directly at her.
The driver's door opened.
A man stepped out.
The same tall man from beneath the tavern awning.
Mara didn't wait.
She ran toward her Harley.
The engine coughed once.
Then twice.
Then roared.
She pulled away just as the truck accelerated.
Behind her, tires sprayed water across the pavement.
Mara looked into the mirror.
The truck was following.
And suddenly she understood.
The damage to the motorcycle had never been the attack.
It had been the warning.
The real attack had just begun.
What Daniel Left Behind
Mara knew every road in Briar County.
That knowledge saved her life.
She didn't take the highway.
Instead, she turned onto Old Quarry Road, a narrow stretch of pavement winding between abandoned farmland and the dark outline of the eastern hills.
The pickup followed.
Its headlights appeared and disappeared through the rain.
Mara pushed the Harley harder.
The motorcycle complained beneath her, but it responded.
Daniel had built it to survive.
So had she.
At the next intersection, Mara killed her headlights and turned sharply onto an old logging road.
The pickup continued straight.
Mara stopped behind a stand of pine trees.
She watched.
The truck disappeared.
She waited five minutes.
Then ten.
Nothing.
She finally breathed.
Her hands were shaking.
Not from fear.
From memory.
Daniel had once brought her to this road.
It had been six years earlier.
A week before his death.
He had parked beside an abandoned mill and said something that Mara had laughed at because she thought he was joking.
"If anything ever happens to me," he had said, "don't trust anyone who says they want to help."
She had rolled her eyes.
"That's dramatic."
"I'm serious."
"So am I. You're watching too many crime shows."
Daniel had smiled.
Then he had touched her cheek.
"I love you."
Mara remembered that moment now with painful clarity.
At the time, she had not understood why he sounded as though he were saying goodbye.
Now she did.
She rode another mile before turning toward home.
The house was dark.
Mara parked the Harley inside the detached garage.
She locked the doors.
Then she searched every window.
Nothing.
No movement.
No broken glass.
She went into the kitchen and placed the brass key on the table.
For several minutes, she simply stared at it.
Then she went upstairs.
In the back of her closet was an old wooden box.
Daniel's box.
She had not opened it in years.
Inside were receipts, photographs, a broken watch, two wedding rings from a trip they had taken to Savannah, and a folded piece of paper.
Mara opened the paper.
Daniel's handwriting appeared immediately.
If you're reading this, I was right.