For Now and Forever (The Inn at Sunset Harbor-Book 1)

CHAPTER NINE

As she raced back into the house, her arms laden with photo albums, Emily was acutely aware of the sounds of hammering and drilling coming from the ballroom. That meant that despite the late hour, Daniel was still inside hanging picture frames and mirrors for her. He'd been working later and later into the evening, sometimes as late as midnight, and Emily had begun to entertain the thought that he was doing it to be close to her, to maintain a sense of proximity, as if he waited for the moment she brought in a cup of tea for him as keenly as she did. It was often around this time of the evening, after she was done organizing and rummaging for the day, that she'd pop her head around the door and catch up with him. He would be expecting her to do so tonight as well.

But tonight her mind was elsewhere. In fact, seeing Daniel was the last thing she wanted to do. She'd been so shaken up by the photograph of Charlotte, by the discovery of the darkroom, that she'd become solely focused on what she wanted to do next, what she needed to do, right now. At last.

Because there were still rooms within the house that Emily hadn't been in yet—rooms she had very deliberately avoided entering. One was her father's study, and it was here that she was heading. Even after months of living in the house, the door to his study had been kept tightly shut. She hadn't wanted to disturb it. Or, more likely, she hadn't wanted to let out whatever secrets it held.

But now she felt like too much had remained hidden for too long. The mysteries in her family were eating her up. She'd let the silences, the not knowings, take over her mind. No one in her family had ever spoken about anything—of Charlotte's death, of her mom's subsequent breakdown, of her parents' impending divorce which advanced closer with every year that passed. They were cowards—letting their wounds fester rather than taking action. Her mom, her dad, they were both the same, leaving so much unspoken, letting the wounds became gangrenous until the only course of action was to sever the limb.

Sever the limb, Emily thought.

That was exactly what her father had done, wasn't it? He'd severed his entire family, had run away from whatever problem it was he was unable to speak about. He'd walked out on all of them because of some obstacle, some hurdle, that he deemed insurmountable. Emily didn't want to spend her whole life wondering. She wanted answers. And she knew she would find them in that study.

She dumped the box of photos on the stairs before climbing them two at a time. Her mind raced frantically as she strode with purpose along the upstairs corridor until she reached the door of her father's study and paused. The door was made of dark varnished wood. Emily remembered staring up at it as a youngster. It had seemed imposing back then, almost menacing, a door through which her father would disappear as though swallowed up, only to emerge hours later. She was never allowed to disturb him and, despite her curiosity as a child, she'd never broken the rules and gone inside. She didn't know why she wasn't allowed in. She didn't know why her father would disappear inside. Her mom told her nothing, and as the years passed and she grew into a teenager, she'd adopted a couldn't-care-less attitude about the room, wrapping her unanswered questions in a blanket of silence.

She tried the doorknob now and was surprised to discover that it turned. She'd assumed the study would be locked, that it would put up some kind of resistance to her intrusion. So it came as a shock to her to realize she could just walk straight into a room she'd never set foot inside before.

She hesitated, almost as if waiting for her mother to appear and scold her. But of course no one came, so Emily took a deep breath and pushed open the door. It swung open with a creak.

Emily peered into a room of shadows. Inside she saw a large desk, filing cabinets, and bookshelves. Unlike the rest of the house, her dad's study was tidy. He hadn't filled it with objects or artwork or photographs; there were no mismatched rugs overlaid on the floor because he couldn't decide which one to buy. In fact, of every room in the house she'd been in, this one was the least like her father's. The incongruity was disconcerting.