Chapter 124: A Diary

Cecilia

I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Arthur standing in the doorway, still in his pajama pants, his hair mussed from sleep, his eyes concerned as they took in my expression.

"Ceci?" His voice was soft, worried. "What's wrong? Mrs. Chen said Daniel Brahmore was here."

I looked at him—at the man I loved more than anything, who'd chosen me over his own family again and again.

And I made a decision.

"He came to thank me for saving him yesterday," I said quietly. "And to apologize for causing such a scene at the gala."

Arthur's expression shifted into something guarded, careful. "Is that all?"

"That's all," I lied, and hated myself for it.

But it was the right choice. I knew it was. Because Arthur had already lost so much, had already been forced to choose between his family and me so many times.

I couldn't ask him to do it again.

The next morning, I met Daniel outside the Tribeca apartment building where Arthur and I had lived before moving to Black Peak Estate.

Daniel looked better than he had yesterday—the swelling in his nose had gone down slightly, though the bruising around his eye had deepened to a spectacular purple-black that made me wince in sympathy.

"Thanks for coming," he said, falling into step beside me as we entered the building. "I know this can't be easy."

"It's fine," I lied, pressing the elevator button with more force than necessary. "Let's just get this over with."

The apartment felt strange and hollow when we stepped inside. I'd only been gone a few weeks, but already it had that abandoned quality that spaces get when no one's living in them—the air slightly stale, dust beginning to settle on surfaces, the particular silence that comes from a place that's waiting for someone to come home.

"Your mother stayed here about a week, you said?" Daniel asked, pulling out his phone to take notes.

"Yeah. Maybe a little longer." I moved through the living room, trying to see it through investigative eyes rather than the lens of memory. "She had the guest room. This way."

The guest room looked exactly as I'd left it—bed made with military precision by Mrs. Chen before we'd moved out, curtains drawn, everything neat and impersonal. No sign that anyone had ever stayed here at all.

Daniel started with the closet while I checked the dresser drawers. Nothing. Not a single item of clothing, no forgotten toiletries, no scraps of paper or receipts or anything that might indicate my mother had ever been here.

"She must have taken everything with her when she went to Black Peak," I said, closing the last drawer with more force than necessary.

"Or someone cleaned up after," Daniel said quietly, and I felt my stomach drop.

We spent another hour searching—checking under the bed, behind furniture, in the bathroom cabinets. Daniel even examined the floorboards and baseboards, looking for loose sections where something might be hidden.

Nothing.

"Alright," Daniel said finally, straightening up and brushing dust off his jeans. "Let's try the old house. The one where you lived with your parents before your father died."

The drive to my childhood home took forty minutes through morning traffic. I hadn't been back here since that awkward visit with Arthur, when I'd walked in on my mother with Matthias. The memory made my stomach turn.

The house looked the same as it had that day. The lock stuck slightly when I turned it, protesting from disuse.

"Where should we start?" Daniel asked, his voice echoing slightly in the empty space.

"Upstairs," I said, already moving toward the staircase. "Her bedroom. If she left anything behind, it would be there."

My mother's bedroom was at the end of the hall—the master suite she'd shared with my father until his death.

The room was dark when we entered, heavy curtains blocking out the morning sun. I flicked on the light and immediately felt that disorienting sense of stepping back in time—everything was exactly as I remembered it from my childhood.

The four-poster bed with its cream-colored duvet, the antique vanity where my mother had done her makeup, the sitting area by the windows where she used to read.

"You take that side," I said to Daniel, gesturing to the closet and dresser. "I'll check the bathroom and the sitting area."

We worked in silence for a while, the only sounds the opening and closing of drawers, the rustle of papers being examined. I found old cosmetics in the bathroom, expired prescriptions with my father's name on them that no one had bothered to throw away, a hairbrush still tangled with strands of my mother's blonde hair.

Nothing useful. Nothing that would help us understand what had really happened.

I was about to give up, to suggest we try somewhere else, when something caught my eye in the sitting area.

The corner where the armchair met the wall—there was a gap there, maybe six inches wide, and something was wedged into it. Something that looked like the edge of a book.

I knelt down, reaching into the gap, my fingers closing around worn leather. When I pulled it out, dust came with it, suggesting it had been there for a long time, forgotten or deliberately hidden.

A diary.

The leather cover was brown and cracked with age, the binding loose enough that some pages threatened to fall out. No lock, no name embossed on the front—just a plain journal that could have belonged to anyone.

But I knew, even before I opened it, that it was my mother's.

"Daniel," I called out, my voice sounding strange and distant. "I found something."

He appeared in the doorway immediately, his eyes widening when he saw what I was holding. "Is that—"

"My mother's diary," I confirmed.

"Hurry and open it," he said urgently.