I am the little bird.
I listened briefly to see if I could hear him coming back, but everything was quiet. I quickly glanced through the folders.
Strickland
Reports
Investigation
Private
I clicked onReportsand then right-clicked: Open all documents.
My neck tingled as I selected them one by one and skimmed them. There were reports. The first ones were about Syria and Dad’s units in the crisis area, but I also found documents about the oil sands industry, about Dad’s Hampton Oil Company in Canada. I read about exceeded parameters and the unclear impact on people, animals, and the environment. There were chemical formulas and a list of countless substances whose names I had never heard before. I skimmed terms like water monitoring, fish stock surveys, and sediment investigations. Everything was so complicated that I didn’t truly understand what it meant. An expert needed to explain it to me, but these documents were definitely evidence. I would have loved to save them on a USB stick or send them to my email inbox, but I had no internet access and I couldn’t find a USB stick in Dad’s study. Without thinking twice, I simply printed out all the documents before opening the other folders and making a printed copy of each document. In the folder labeledPrivate,I found nothing, meaning nothing relevant, but there was one document with a long number. Maybe a file number. Or maybe…
I automatically glanced at Dad’s safe. Didn’t Dad always joke that, unlike me, he couldn’t remember numbers and had even saved the code for his safe on his PC?
Was it possible that Dad, my successful dad, didn’t know the code inside out? Or was he simply afraid of forgetting it?
It was worth a shot. I memorized the numbers and hurried to the shiny black safe. It was a gem in itself, a custom-madeproduct from a security company about the size of a small office cabinet framed in milky opals.
As it was built into an ebony-black cabinet, I didn’t have to kneel. I nervously entered the numbers, praying that Dad wouldn’t come home right then. And I hoped he wouldn’t get a text message if the code wasn’t the correct one. Although, he had knocked out the internet and phone line, so no alert system would work.
After I’d punched in the last digit, there was a gentleclickas harmless and insignificant as if a normal lock was released and the door popped open.
As I peered inside, I felt my adrenaline surge. There were various shelves and a large, central compartment. There were letters, lots of letters, but on top was something that made my throat tighten. A simple, imperfect heart made of driftwood. No glitter at all.
Nathan’s heart, which he had carved for me as a child in Baton Rouge. I took it out, held it to my chest, and felt tears well up in my eyes. Another trophy for Dad. He must have known it meant something to me or else he wouldn’t have kept it. But he took it from me anyway. Somehow, at that moment, it seemed like the biggest betrayal. He had told me he had given it to a begging street kid when I asked him about it once.
I put it in my pocket and removed a stack of letters from the central compartment. My eyes widened. The letters were all addressed to me from Grandma Anna.She wrote to me over and over again!Anger welled up in me, but I put them back and took a single loose letter from another compartment.
It was from Agatha’s Art Gallery, one of the most prestigious art galleries in New York, and it was also for me. The owner had written to me that she had discovered my paintings by chance under#artnewyorkon Instagram and wanted to exhibit themin her gallery. She called my works animpressive illusion of reality.
Oh Dad!
He had kept it from me. I looked at the date of the letter. It was from March last year. Shortly after, Dad had asked me to stop posting my paintings on Instagram because it exposed my soul and could lead to speculation.
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I put the letter back and picked up another one. I noticed that there was a pistol on the top shelf right at the back. A Glock.
It didn’t shock me because I knew Dad owned guns. In the study was his gun cabinet with more Glocks and antique revolvers.
Despite the warning voice inside me to take the gun, I left it alone and opened the letter. The sender was a private laboratory in New York.Family Safety. I looked at the date. The letter was over thirteen years old. At the top above the letterhead, it saidConfidential. At the top right was a file number and a reference number.
Various lines followed.
Nicholas G. Hampton, identity confirmed by ID card
Willa Nevaeh Rae Hampton, identity confirmed by ID card
