Because not knowing what I will find on the other side is the worst part. That’s what makes my heart pound viciously in my chest and tightens my lungs.
Will I open the door and see the shadow from my nightmares? Going through my things?
My eyes widen, realization hitting that the sick fuck could be going through my underwear drawer. The thought sends a tsunami of anger washing over me, and before I can consider the ramifications, I barrel through the door.
No one is inside.
I charge through the room, checking every corner before storming out onto the balcony. No one.
Chest heaving, I whip around and scope out the room, trying to figure out where an intruder could hide. My eyes pause on the closet.
I aim for it, sliding the door open so forcefully, it nearly comes off the track. My arm lashes through the clothing, searching for someone that isn't here.
But I know I heard something.
My breath catches when I turn, and my eyes sweep across my bed, forcing me to backtrack. Right under my bed is Gigi’s diary, lying on the floor and flipped open.
That must’ve been what the thump was, but how the fuck did it fall? My blood freezes when I look on my nightstand and see the diary I’ve been reading still there.
I had put Gigi’s other two diaries in my nightstand for safekeeping until I got to them. So how did one of them end up on the floor?
With another suspicious sweep of the room, I walk over to the book and pick it up, leaving it open. Skimming my eyes across the page, I pause when I take in the words.
Judging by the dates, it’s the last book she wrote in before she died. The three books span across two years, Gigi having died on May 20th, 1946.
The book was open on an entry two days before Gigi’s murder, May 18th. She’s expressing fear, but she doesn’t say of who. Clearly, she’s terrified of something. My heart thumps harder as I ingest her rushed words.
She talks about someone being after her. Scaring her. Who, though? Forgetting about everything else around me, I sit on the edge of the bed and flip to the beginning.
With each passing entry, her words become clipped and fearful. Before I know it, I’m nearly ripping through the pages, trying to find any inkling of who her murderer is.
But on the very last page, her last words are: he came for me. No lipstick kiss on the page. Just those four daunting words. I turn the page, looking to see if there’s more. Desperate for it, actually.
There are no more entries, but I do notice something strange.
A jagged piece of paper sticks out from the spine. I trace my fingers over it. A page has been ripped out of the diary.
Did she write down something important and decide it wasn’t worth the risk of anyone knowing? All three of these books are risqué, full of cheating and sex. Above all, full of love for a man that stalked her.
I look up, staring ahead but seeing nothing.
When Mom left, she left with the hopes that I’d listen to her advice and move out of Parsons Manor. But when she walked out of that door, the sickening smell of her Chanel perfume lingering in my nostrils, I decided I didn’t want to move.
Did Nana have a weird attachment to the manor? Possibly. But if this house meant so much to her, it doesn’t feel right to give it away. Even if that means I have an unhealthy attachment, too.
And now, that decision is only solidifying. There’s no way this book could’ve ended up on the floor. Yet it did. And I don’t know if it was Nana’s doing, or Gigi’s, but someone wanted me to read these entries.
Do they want me to find the person who killed Gigi? God, I can’t imagine how difficult it would’ve been to solve a murder in the 40s with such underwhelming technology. Is her murderer even still alive?
Maybe it doesn’t matter if he is or not. Maybe Gigi wants justice for her murder, and for the man that ended her life too soon to be exposed—dead or alive.
I exhale a shaky breath, my fingers tracing the four daunting words.
He came for me.
“Can you please explain to me why you’re making me hack into the PD’s database to look at crime photos of your murdered grandmother?” Daya asks from beside me, her fingers hovering over her mouse.
I’m tempted to reach over and push her finger down for her so she’ll finally click the damn button. Once she does, it’ll pull up Gigi’s records.