Page 47 of Rest In Peace

"Uncover what's hidden," I continued, my voice steady, even though it quivered inside. "No matter what." The weight of those words settled in the room, heavy, unyielding. A promise to Nicki, to Steven, to the faint echo of justice that still rang somewhere in the back of my mind.

I stood up, stretching muscles tight from tension and too many hours hunched over clues that led in circles. The lamp on my desk flickered slightly, casting long, dancing shadows on the walls.

"Truth," I whispered, stepping into the living room where Matt was sleeping on the couch. "I'm coming for you."

I changed the channel to watch the evening news and almost dropped the glass of wine I had just poured.

A man had been shot tonight in the office of his house while hosting a party. And it was in Cape Canaveral, on the same street where the two other bodies had been found.

Coincidence? I think not.

Chapter 41

THEN:

The soft glow of the table lamp threw shadows across Sarah’s face as she perched on the edge of her sofa, a glass of red wine cradled in her hand. Her thumb brushed against the stem, tracing circles that mirrored the turmoil swirling within her. Victoria's laughter, once the soundtrack of this room, now felt like a haunting melody from a distant past. The silence was oppressive, punctuated only by the faint ticking of the wall clock—each second a stark reminder of her daughter's fragility.

Victoria was back in the hospital, and Steven was with her, spending the night, never leaving her side. Every time she went in, Sarah worried she would never return home.

"Come on, Sarah," she murmured to herself, a half-hearted attempt to break the spell of anxiety that had woven itself around her heart. Her voice sounded alien in the quiet.

She pushed herself up with reluctant resolve, the cushion springing back into place. With its dimmed lights and the lingering scent of vanilla candles, the living room held too many ghosts tonight. She needed something else, something tangible to tether her to a time less complicated and less heavy with dread.

The office seemed like a refuge in comparison, the moonlight spilling through the open blinds casting a checkerboard pattern across the floor. Sarah moved toward the antique desk nestled in the corner.

"Old memories," she whispered, almost a prayer, as she slid open the stubborn drawer that always stuck a little on the left side.

Inside were the remnants of a life before illness, hospitals, and hushed conversations behind closed doors. A life where the biggest worries were scraped knees and monsters under the bed, not test results and treatment plans.

"Let's see what you've got for me," she said, the words meant to inject some semblance of lightness into the task at hand. Her fingers danced over envelopes and faded concert tickets, each touch a balm for her aching soul.

Underneath a pile of discarded papers, Sarah's hand brushed against the cool surface of glossed photographs. She drew them out slowly, spreading them across the mahogany desk like a mosaic of memories frozen in time. Each image was a captured echo of Victoria's life—her first steps, toothless grin, and the way her laughter seemed to fill the room even in stillness.

"Look at you," Sarah murmured, tracing the outline of her daughter's face in a photo where Victoria wore a bright yellow sundress, the garden behind her blooming with promise. The next few pictures showed the same vibrant scenes, but with each passing year, the girl in the images remained unchanged, as if time itself had become an unreliable narrator.

Her fingers lingered on a particular photograph taken on Victoria's twelfth birthday. Balloons framed the tiny figure seated at the head of the table, her smile hesitant between the candles' glow. Yet the child in the picture bore the delicate features of someone much younger, her illness casting a shadow that no amount of light could dispel. She couldn’t even walk anymore and was confined to that darn wheelchair all day long. At twelve years of age, she looked like she was eight.

"God, why?" The words escaped Sarah's lips, a whispered accusation against the cruelty of fate. Her vision blurred as tears welled up, spilling over and dotting the picture with translucent spots. The paper curled slightly at the corners, absorbing her sorrow in silence.

"Twelve years old," she choked out, her voice cracking with the weight of realization. "You should be outgrowing clothes faster than I can buy them, not… not this." The edges of the photo became jagged through the watery veil of her eyes, and Sarah felt a pang deep within her chest—a mother's grief, raw and untamed.

"Little bird, it's not fair," she sobbed, clutching the photos to her heart as if by holding them close, she could somehow shield Victoria from the harsh truth of her stunted youth. "You've flown so high on such fragile wings."

The silence of the room wrapped around her like a cold embrace, heavy with the unspoken fears that flickered in her mind like shadows. In the quiet, the only sound was the soft patter of her tears marking the passage of time on glossy paper—moments captured, growth denied, a childhood overshadowed by the specter of illness.

Gently putting the photos back, Sarah's hand paused midway to the drawer. A sliver of brown peeked from the shadowed recesses, a silent siren amidst the sea of forgotten trinkets and papers. It was a folder, worn at the edges, the material creased by the pressure of many hands, or perhaps merely the weight of time itself.

With the tips of her fingers, she coaxed the folder forward. The pull of curiosity drew her gaze to the faded label, its once-bold letters now soft and yielding to the touch. "Victoria—Medical," it read—a simple title that carried the gravity of their shared past.

Sarah's breath hitched, her heart momentarily caught in the trap of nostalgia. Opening the cover released a faint scent of antiseptic, a ghost of hospital corridors and sterile rooms. The first page crackled under her trembling fingers, yellowed with age but still holding the meticulous notes of doctors who had once been stewards of hope.

Her eyes flitted across the lines—dates, measurements, medical terms that had become an unwanted part of her vocabulary. Each entry was a stepping stone in Victoria's daunting journey, reminders of battles fought and small victories celebrated in hushed tones so as not to tempt fate.

"Little bird," Sarah whispered again, the endearment mingling with the mustiness of the paper. How many times had she prayed for a miracle? And still, the answers seemed as elusive as the cure that danced just beyond their reach.

Absorbed in the journal's contents, Sarah found herself traveling back to those early days of uncertainty when every cough or fever sent them hurtling toward the emergency room, hearts thrumming with fear. The past clung to her, a tapestry of memories woven through with threads of sorrow and resilience.

In the dim light of the office, with shadows encroaching upon her solitude, Sarah continued to leaf through her daughter's medical history—a chronicle of struggle and strength that was both intimately familiar and unfathomably distant.

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