Page 111 of The Clifftop Cottage

Leah stared.

Maisie looked up at her, eyes shining. “Did Auntie Eri bury it?”

Leah didn’t answer.

She just watched the shape slowly revealing itself, like something waking after a long sleep.

Then she felt it – the sense of someone standing behind her.

Leah turned to find Erica a few paces away.

Beside her was a man.

They were standing close, closer than strangers.

For a moment Leah didn’t recognise him. The darkness softened the lines of his face.

Then his voice came quietly across the garden. “Looks like you found something.”

Something in Leah’s memory shifted.

The phone call.

The calm voice that had answered Erica’s phone weeks ago.

The landlord.

Gabriel.

Leah’s gaze flicked to their hands. She was sure they’d been holding on to each other a second ago.

Erica stepped forward, boots sinking into the churned mud. “What is it?”

“I thought you might know,” Leah said. “Maisie’s found something. Look.”

“I didn’t—” Erica dropped to her knees beside the hole. “I dug here. There was nothing.”

“Erica.” Leah’s voice sharpened. “Just look.”

Maisie beamed, hands muddy. “Like the cupboard one,” she said proudly. “I found that one too.”

Gabriel crouched down beside them. For a moment his hand hovered near the carved initials in the stone wall before he looked back to the hole.

“Would someone mind telling me,” she said carefully, “why my sister’s garden looks like a crime scene?”

Erica didn’t answer straight away. Her breath hung pale in the cold air. “But I thought …” she began, then stopped. “I thought I’d already looked here.”

Gabriel studied the half-buried box, his expression thoughtful. “Sometimes you just miss things the first time.” He glanced up at Erica. “Are you sure you want to open it?”

Or leave it.

The question settled over the garden like another layer of mist.

Erica paced across the damp grass, thumb pressed against her lip the way she used to when she was thinking too hard. “I don’t know.”

“Auntie Eri, you have to open it,” Maisie said, barely able to contain herself. “You found it.”

Erica shook her head. “No, Maisie. You did.”