Soon the conversation shifts from this enigma to more light-hearted conversation.
For the next hour we’re just two best friends chatting about life and watching TV.
The clock tolls almost one when Lucia glances at her phone. “I have to get going. I need to head home and get some sleep.”
I walk her to the door. “This was fun, we need to do it again.” I give her a hug.
“We will.” Lucia hugs me tight. “Just be careful with Dominic. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I nod and close the door behind her.
Walking back into the living room, I flop onto the couch and mute the TV so I can be alone with my thoughts.
My eyes fall onto my laptop on the coffee table.
Opening it, I begin to go through all of the video footage AJ had downloaded onto it.
Skipping to the date of my party, I flip through many of the cameras surrounding the mansion.
One angle catches my attention.
Two servers are putting desserts on the tables next to my cake. The one on the right excuses himself and begins walking toward the doors that lead onto the porch.
“That must be Paul Williams,” I murmur as I watch him run his fingers through his blonde hair.
I shift through the outside cameras. In the frame of the fourth camera, I catch a shadow in the far right corner.
At the edge of the property in the woods are two figures. Clicking the buttons, I zoom in on the image. It’s fuzzy and slightly blurred, but I recognize Paul and a man wearing a hoodie.
Pressing another key, I’m able to clear the image enough to identify the second person as Valerio.
“Well, I guess that clears Valerio and proves where he was at the time I got shot,” I mutter, closing the laptop. I curl up on the couch. Valerio was right about one thing. Chaos does burn from within, and that’s exactly what’s happening now.
Next to the laptop are the three pieces to Dad’s chess set. The king, rook, and bishop stare back at me along with the black feathers.
I know I’m missing something.
My hand instinctively drifts toward the Glock resting beneath the throw pillow.
Silence fills the room with the only noise being the slow tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
I should go to bed but I know I won’t be able to sleep. The box my dad left me suddenly comes to mind. I had put it somewhere after Dominic had carried it up from the basement. Maybe the pantry.
Strolling to the kitchen, I open the pantry door and see the box waiting for me. Dragging it out, I plop it onto the wooden floor.
The cardboard is weathered and the tape is brittle, but the handwriting in sharpie is none other than my dad’s.
My heart aches. It shouldn’t have taken me years to open this box, but the pain was just too much.
Pulling back the flaps, I peek inside.
There is an old photograph of my Dad and me when I was little, a few children’s books he used to read to me, my baby blanket, and then some artwork I made for him on his birthday.
Confusion fills me.
I understand the emotional attachment Dad would feel about these items, but I expected something else.
Taking each object out and placing it on the floor, a smile spreads over my face as I drift back to my childhood.
