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Chapter 802:
He collapsed into the wooden chair where Caleb used to sit and buried his face in his hands. A raw, ugly sob ripped from his throat, echoing through the silent room. He desperately needed to find something of Caleb’s — some piece of his brother to anchor him to reality.
He pulled the desk drawers open, his hands moving frantically. He found old medical textbooks, Caleb’s high school baseball medals. Nothing else.
He slammed the bottom drawer shut. As he did, his eyes caught a strange shadow on the inside panel of the desk leg. The wood grain did not align perfectly. There was a hairline gap.
Cole’s heart hammered against his ribs. He grabbed a metal letter opener from the top of the desk, jammed it into the gap, and pried the wood backward. With a sharp crack, the wooden panel popped free, revealing a hidden compartment built directly into the thick leg of the desk.
Sitting inside the dark recess was a heavy, custom-made steel lockbox coated in a thick layer of dust, the metal cold and dull. Cole reached in and pulled it out. The box featured a heavy-duty mechanical combination lock with five rotating letter wheels.
Cole stared at the dials. His brain raced. He spun the rings to Caleb’s birthday. The lock did not move. He tried the date their parents died. Nothing.
He closed his eyes and took a slow breath of the dusty air. He pictured the flowers resting in the rain at the cemetery.
Y𝗼u𝘳 dа𝗂𝗅𝘆 𝘥𝗼𝘴𝖾 о𝖿 no𝘃𝖾𝗅𝘀 o𝗻.с𝗈𝗺
His thumb moved to the first dial. He clicked it into place. E.
The second dial. D.
The third. E.
The fourth. L.
The fifth. W.
Edelweiss.
A loud, metallic click echoed in the quiet room. The internal spring released. Cole’s lungs seized. He slowly popped the heavy steel latch and opened the lid.
Inside, rolled tightly, was a black leather-bound diary. The edges of the pages were worn and frayed from constant use.
Cole pulled the diary out. Printed on the front cover in faded gold lettering were the words: To My Light in the Dark.
Folded neatly beneath it was a single piece of paper. Cole pulled it out and unfolded it. It was a photocopy of a medical admission form from the Swiss Alps Sanatorium. The patient name printed at the top was June Erickson.
Cole’s hands shook so violently he almost dropped the book. He felt as though he were holding a live grenade. He walked to the window, letting the gray light fall across the pages, opened the cover, and began to read.
The rain outside intensified, drumming a heavy, relentless beat against the bedroom window. Cole sat rigid in the chair, his eyes locked onto the yellowed pages of the diary.
The first entry was dated November, seven years ago. The handwriting was messy and sharp, full of Caleb’s anger and despair at being sent to the Swiss Alps to die of terminal bone cancer.
But a few pages in, the handwriting changed. It softened.
I went to the cemetery behind the clinic today, Caleb wrote. I saw an angel who wanted to die.