The Lie Hidden in Roses Chapter 11

The Lie Hidden in Roses Chapter 11 The Secret in the Music Box

When I got back to the apartment, the man wearing Rowan’s face was sitting on the couch, watching television.

A crime drama flashed across the screen, blue police lights flickering over his features. He stared at it with an unsettling kind of concentration, eyes fixed forward, barely blinking.

The moment he heard the door open, he turned and smiled.

“Where were you? You’re later than usual.”

“I stopped by the mall for a while,” I said, setting my bag down by the door. “Didn’t see anything worth buying.”

I sat down beside him.

He reached over and draped an arm around my shoulders.

I let him.

“Next time, I’ll go with you,” he said.

“Sure.”

I leaned lightly against him and kept my eyes on the television, though I wasn’t following a single thing happening on the screen. My mind was still trapped inside everything Damon had told me.

My father had hidden evidence somewhere close to me.

The problem was that I had no idea what “close” meant.

A photograph?

A letter?

Some ordinary keepsake I had seen a hundred times without ever realizing what it was?

My father hadn’t left much behind. A few old books, a wristwatch, some photographs.

And a music box.

The thought struck so suddenly that my breath caught.

The music box.

About a month before my father died, he had given it to me for my tenth birthday. He told me he had found it during a work trip.

It was white, with a tiny ballerina fixed on top. Even back then, it had looked old. The paint around the base had rubbed off in several places, and one of the ballerina’s legs had broken. I remembered gluing it back on myself and feeling proud of how careful I had been.

After all these years, it should still be in the cabinet in my old bedroom at my mother’s house in Willow Creek.

If my father had hidden something for me, could it have been sitting inside that box the whole time?

“What are you thinking about?”

The fake Rowan’s voice pulled me back into the room.

“Nothing.” I said. “I’m just tired.”

“Then we should go to bed early.”

He turned off the television and helped me to my feet, acting like we were just another ordinary couple ending another ordinary night.

While I washed my face, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at my own reflection.

The woman looking back at me seemed almost too calm.

I knew exactly what came next. From this point forward, every choice I made could carry me deeper into someone else’s trap.

But there was no way to turn back.

When we climbed into bed, the fake Rowan fell asleep quickly.

His breathing evened out. His posture was disturbingly familiar, flat on his back with both hands resting at his sides, exactly the way Rowan used to sleep.

But he was not Rowan.

After I was certain he was asleep, I slipped out from under the covers, went into the living room, and unlocked my phone.

I sent Damon a message.

Uncle Damon. I think I know where my father left it.

His reply came almost immediately.

Don’t move on your own. I’ll make arrangements.

I deleted the conversation and returned to bed.

In the dark, the fake Rowan rolled toward me and laid an arm across my waist.

I lay stiff beside him, staring up at the ceiling until morning.

The next day, I went to work as if nothing had changed.

After sitting at my desk for an hour. I told my supervisor I wasn’t feeling well and asked to leave early.

Then I got into a cab and went straight to Willow Creek.

My mother still lived in the same house. When she saw me show up without warning, surprise crossed her face at once.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” she asked.

She was out on the balcony airing out blankets, still wearing her apron.

“I missed you,” I said, stepping forward to hug her. “So I came home.”

The second I wrapped my arms around her, a sharp ache opened in my chest..

My mother still did not know the truth about my father’s death. For fifteen years, she had believed he died in a car accident.

Even now, her eyes would redden whenever his name came up. In her heart, he was still a good man stolen from us by nothing more than bad luck and a cruel stretch of road.

I couldn’t tell her the truth.

Not yet.

“Mom,” I asked, keeping my voice as steady as I could, “do you still have the music box I had when I was little?”

“Which one?”

“The white one Dad gave me for my tenth birthday. The one with the little dancer on top.”

“It should be in the cabinet in your room,” she said. “I’ll help you look.”

“No, it’s okay. I can find it.”

I went into my old bedroom.

The room had barely changed. My high school posters were still on the walls, and my college textbooks were still lined neatly on the shelf. My mother had kept everything so carefully that it almost felt as if she expected me to move back in at any moment.

I opened the cabinet and began searching.

The music box was still there, tucked behind a stack of old notebooks and coated in dust.

I picked it up and shook it gently.

Something shifted inside.

It was not the light rattle of a loose screw or a broken piece of the mechanism. Whatever was hidden in there moved with a dull, solid knock against the wooden interior.

I opened the music box and examined it more closely.

Inside, beneath a narrow panel I had never noticed before, was a folded piece of paper.

The paper had yellowed with age, and the edges looked so brittle I was afraid they might crumble between my fingers. I unfolded it as carefully as I could.

It was a hand-drawn map.