Chapter 12 · The Replacement

"Your mother had a locker at the hospital."

Daniel said it like he was asking me to pass the salt. We were standing in the hospital parking lot, dawn turning the asphalt purple, and he'd just pulled a folded paper from his jacket. Employee storage log. My mother's name, handwritten, unit 47-B.

"She quit ten years ago," I said. "They would've cleared it."

"They tried." He handed me the paper. "It won't open. Maintenance filed six work orders. Then they stopped trying."

I looked at the page. The last work order was dated three months after she drowned. Someone had written in the margin: *Requested bolt cutters. Lock heating up to touch. Recommend sealing hall.*

"Why are you showing me this now?"

"Because Mara knew about it." He moved closer, and I caught the smell of old smoke on his coat. "She went looking for it two days before she fell. Someone saw her in the basement with bolt cutters and a flashlight."

My chest went tight. "You think whatever killed her is in my mother's locker."

"I think your mother left something unfinished. And the house wants you to finish it."

"Then we destroy the locker."

"We can't.