Chapter 3

I sat on the couch, staring at the surveillance photos and the empty envelope in my hands.

I had never felt so scared or helpless in my life.

For a moment, I seriously considered calling the police.

But Mom’s warning stopped me.

'They have people inside the department too.'

If that was true, going to the police might put me in even more danger.

In the end, I decided to follow her instructions.

So far, at least, every warning she had given me had kept me alive.

The next day was Saturday.

I put on a baseball cap and a face mask, then took the bus to the flea market on the west side of the city.

The place was packed with stalls selling secondhand goods, and the air smelled of dust and old things.

I found booth thirty-seven near the back.

The vendor was a thin old man polishing an antique radio.

“Excuse me,” I said cautiously. “Do you have a red metal box?”

He looked up.

His cloudy eyes studied me for several seconds.

“What kind of red metal box?”

“Just... red.”

That was all Mom had told me.

The old man nodded.

He bent down, dragged a cardboard box out from under his table, and rummaged through it.

A moment later, he pulled out a small red tin box about the size of my palm.

It looked old.

There were spots of rust around the edges.

“Fifty bucks.”

I paid him and took the box.

It was heavier than it looked.

When I moved it, I could hear something sliding around inside.

“Don’t open it here.”

The old man’s voice suddenly dropped.

I looked up.

“What?”

“Wait until you get home.”

“But—”

“Go.”

His eyes darted past me.

The tension in his face changed instantly.

I followed his gaze.

Two men in black jackets were standing near the entrance to the market.

They weren’t shopping.

They were scanning the crowd.

My stomach tightened.

I shoved the box into my backpack, pulled my cap lower, and quickly slipped away through another aisle.

I didn’t go straight home.

I doubled back several times, ducked into a few stores, and changed direction more than once.

Only after I was reasonably sure no one had followed me did I call a rideshare.

When I finally got back to my apartment, I locked the door and closed every curtain.

Then I took the red box from my backpack.

There was no lock.

Just a simple metal clasp.

I hesitated.

Mom had specifically told me not to open it.

So had the old man.

But after everything that had happened, curiosity finally won.

I flipped the clasp.

Inside, there were no documents.

No mysterious photographs.

Nothing that looked particularly important.

Just a memory card.

And a folded note.

The handwriting stopped me cold.

It was Mom’s.

'Honey, if you’re reading this, it means you opened the box. And that means you no longer trust me. Destroy the memory card. Never look at what’s on it. I’m asking you to do this for your own good.'

I stared at the note.

Then at the tiny memory card sitting inside the box.

My thoughts tore in opposite directions.

Mom was telling me not to look.

But after everything that had happened, could I really keep trusting her blindly?

And another question had been bothering me more and more.

Was the woman calling me really my mother?

Was that cold, commanding voice truly the same gentle woman who had raised me?

In the end, I didn’t destroy the memory card.

But I didn’t look at it either.

Instead, I sealed it in a plastic bag and hid it behind a stack of frozen food in the back of my freezer.

It seemed like one of the last places anyone would think to search.

For the next few days, nothing happened.

No calls from strange numbers.

No more surveillance photos.

No men in black jackets.

For a while, I almost convinced myself it was over.

Then, the night before my birthday, everything changed.

That night, my dead mother called again.