I spun the dial three times, thinking hard to remember what Barb had said about the movie. Eleven on his jersey. Ten people dead. Trying to catch him before he makes it eleven.

I dialed 11, spun to 10, and then back to 11.

It opened.

At first I just lay there staring in stunned silence. Then I almost cried out, I was so excited, but I could hear Dad’s footsteps upstairs as he dried off and got dressed. No time for celebration.

I reached into the box and pulled out . . . papers. No, not papers. Envelopes. A whole stack of them. I held up the first one. It was to my mother. From B. Carter.

Letters? Why would Dad lock up letters? Why would he even keep them in the first place?

I started to pull the letter out of the envelope but heard Dad’s footsteps hit the stairs.

“Nikki?” he called.

Jesus. Leave for one night and you become a prisoner. I stuffed the partially opened letter back into its envelope, shut the box and spun the dial to lock it again, gathered all the envelopes together, and stood. I had barely gotten back on my feet when Dad poked his head in the doorway. I was holding the letters behind my back.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked.

I smiled, trying to come off as nonchalant—my least believable act. “Looking for a pen,” I said.

“A pen,” he repeated, looking unconvinced. “For . . . ?”

“Does it matter?” I rolled my eyes. My fingers shook on the envelopes. “God. Okay, I was thinking about filling out some job applications. I didn’t want to tell you because you get all up in my business about it.” Fortunately, Dad was old-school enough to believe that filling out job applications was something you still did with a pen and paper.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he muttered. But he moved toward the desk anyway. I sidestepped out of his way, and while he was busy opening and fumbling around in drawers, I slipped the letters into my waistband, then pulled my shirt over them to conceal them. Finally, he handed me a pen. I smiled thinly.

“Thanks. Maybe a little faith in me next time?”

“I always have faith in you,” he said. “It’s you who doesn’t have faith in you.”

Ouch. That was a little too close to home.

Not true, I thought. It’s you I don’t have faith in anymore, Dad. That one was even closer.

I backed out of the room and hurried upstairs. I was halfway up when Dad called my name. I froze, my hand involuntarily going to the back of my shirt to make sure the letters weren’t peeking out. They weren’t; he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding the remote and the half-empty bowl of popcorn. “I just cleaned,” he said. “You could at least pick up after yourself.”