The room was suffocatingly quiet. Richard stood frozen, his eyes locked onto Maya’s trembling hands hidden behind her back.
“What do you mean, Maya?” Richard asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “What happened the night Clara left?”
Maya took a slow step backward, her heart hammering against her ribs. She wanted to hand him the letter—she wanted to tell him that Clara didn’t run away out of anger, but because she was forced to choose between leaving or watching her father’s marriage fall apart.
Before Maya could speak, a soft floorboard creaked behind them.
Standing near the end of the dark hallway was Evelyn, Maya’s mother and Richard’s current wife. She was calm, holding a folded laundry basket, but her eyes were cold, sharp, and fixed directly on the letter in Maya’s hand.
“Is everything alright up here?” Evelyn asked, her tone eerily smooth.
Maya froze. The letter in her hand suddenly felt like a burning ember. In that brief second, Maya realized the terrifying truth: the handwriting on the outer envelope wasn’t Clara’s—it was her mother’s, intercepting every single cry for help Clara had ever sent.
Richard turned his head toward Evelyn, his brow furrowed with suspicion for the very first time in three years. “Evelyn… did you know about these letters?”
To be continued in Episode 3…
