Page 68 of Whiteout

“A secret safe?” she offered.

He chuckled.

“What if Derek already has them?”

Then we’re well and truly fucked.

If Valerie stashed her copies anywhere else, that was entirely possible. But knowing her as he did, Ian believed the documents had to be here. Somewhere. They just had to find them.

“He doesn’t have access to the third floor. No one does. I have the only key.”

“Why you?” she asked with a slight cock of her head.

Ian placed his arm around her shoulders, and drawing her closer, he smiled. “Your grandmother and I were close. She trusted me.”

“Over Francie?”

“She loved my aunt.” He paused, and Breanna steered them down the hall toward her father’s apartment. “Look, what I’m trying to say is Valerie liked her privacy, and she trusted me to respect that. If the doors to the stairway were locked, that meant your grandmother wanted to be left alone. And Francie is the kind of person who always has to be doing for others—it’s her nature. She tends to hover.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” She watched him punch the code into the keypad, then glanced up at him. “How did she die?”

“Peacefully. In her sleep.”

“How do you know her death was peaceful?”

“She appeared to be.” Tucking her hair behind her ear, Ian shrugged. “I’m the one who found her.”

With a nod, Breanna wet her lips. “I’m afraid to touch anything in here.”

“Why?”

“Because everything is just as he left it,” she said, fingertips tracing over the photo of a family that never got to be. “That is what you said, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. No one was ever allowed in here, though I think your grandmother would have made an exception for you.” He squeezed her shoulders. “You know, we won’t find what we’re looking for in your dad’s rooms, princess.”

“Maybe not, but I want to look, anyway.”

Going through her father’s things was the closest to him she’d ever get to be, so he humored her. Ian watched the tears slip from Breanna’s eyes while she smiled, sitting on Shane’s unmade bed, looking at photo albums and flipping through old CDs of the music he once listened to.

“Godsmack, Alice in Chains, Queens of the Stone Age—he had good taste.” Bands she no doubt knew. “Bachman-Turner Overdrive?”

“I’m thinking that one must’ve been your grandmother’s.” Chuckling softly, he shrugged. “They’re from the 70s.”

“Oh.” Her lips pursed, Breanna got up and went over to her father’s desk.

Frozen in time, with papers strewn about and books in haphazard stacks. A bulletin board, pinned with photos, Greek letters, and ticket stubs, hung over an ancient-looking computer with a tower on the floor.

Breanna sat down at Shane’s desk. Ignoring the mess in front of her, she rummaged through his drawers instead. A pile of spiral-bound notebooks in her lap, she turned the pages in awe. “Look at this, Sinjin.” Her voice cracked, “His writings.”

Ian stood over her, rubbing Breanna’s back as she opened another drawer, discovering an oblong box inside it. She lifted the lid, and there, as if waiting for someone to read them, lay a stack of typewritten sheets, some three inches high, held together with a rubber band. “Oh, my God,” thumbing through the pages, Breanna squealed. “I think my dad wrote a book.”

Seeing her delight, he smiled. It sure looks like it, baby.

“And he wasn’t much older than I am now.” Turning in her father’s desk chair, fairytale eyes looked up at him. “Sinjin, how did he die?”

“Your mom never told you?”

Breanna shook her head, no.

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