Drowning » Rafe Cameron & JJ Maybank

047

(chapter forty seven)

Clara had let the two inside the house, while John B gave her a small hug, checking her up and down to make sure she was alright. He wasn't sure she would be there, he just hoped she was.

Big John Routledge whistled, looking around the house, until he dropped his bag on the armchair and looked back at her. "Haven't been here in a minute. Not much has changed."

Truth be told, Clara was confused above all. She blinked at the man, then looked back at John B, sending him a look for him to start explaining. He just scratched the back of his neck as he explained to her everything that went down — but Clara could tell he was avoiding his father's eyes, his behavior showing he was hiding something but didn't push him.

"Listen, Clara. Remember when you told me that your grandmother wrote down that the priest survived along with Denmark?" The boy asked, and Clara nodded after a few seconds, not knowing where he wanted to go with that.

He moved to the backpack Big John had rested on the couch, taking out an old leather book. Turning, going over the pages until he stopped in one of them, finger-pointing at one word as he turned the book to her.

"This is Denmark's," he stated, moving closer to her, so she could read it too. "And this is your grandmother's last name, right?"

Clara's eyes ran over the pages, as she let the words sink in. "I mean, yeah, but-"

"Remember we noticed that her drawings and descriptions of places were way too good to be just a coincidence?"

"Johnny-"

"What was really just a coincidence with all of this?" He insisted, and Clara sighed, pushing her hair out of her face with one hand in slight frustration, resting it on the top of her head for a few seconds until she just nodded.

Clara turned to lock the door on the second lock, closing the blinds of the living room window, walking upstairs, leaving the two confused men behind. Then she came back with a key in hand, making her way to the kitchen, calling out the two of them to follow after her. "Can you help me move..."

Her finger pointed to the fridge, and Big John gave his son a questioning look. The boy only shrugged, but he did what she said. When the two men moved the fridge out of the way, Clara crouched down, inserting the key into the small hole on the floor, that opened a hidden trapdoor.

While Clara walked down the steps to the basement in search of the light switch, Big John locked eyes with his son again, but this time with a more impressed look. John B didn't know about this hidden part of Clara's house, but yet again, he has only been there once. He followed after her, while Clara started going through her many books, who looked way older than herself.

"Alice projected this?" Big John asked when he got down, looking around the small room as Clara skimmed through the diary she had grabbed.

"Apparently," the girl said blankly, eyes going over the words. "She wrote in one of the diaries that someone tried to break in several times after a man appeared with a stone statue. He didn't give her a name, but after that, grandma decided to hide her notes where no one else could find them."

Clara put the book down, looking for the other one with a similar cover, as she gave a sarcastic laugh.

"Maybe under a carpet, or even a bed, but no one could think of a hidden basement under a fridge, right?" She finally was able to find the exact entrance of the diary, turning it over to the two. "There's so many books here that I haven't opened yet, but that's one of the few I did."