The Secret of Yellow Bus 17

I stared at the final name until the letters seemed to blur together. David Miller. My David? The man I had married?

He had never mentioned Blackwood County. As far as I knew, his childhood had happened in Maryland, far from these frozen roads and this house.

Still, he had entered foster care at nine. Whenever I asked about the years before his adoptive parents, he said almost nothing remained in his memory.

If he had ridden on Bus 17, why had he kept it from me? Why had he failed to recognize my mother when he first met her?

Mother had changed her surname to Vance before I existed. Four decades had altered her face. And David would have been only eight.

But the photograph had unsettled him. He had known that bus immediately.

My phone was already in my hand before I consciously decided to use it. Tremors ran through my fingers as I opened Facebook.

I searched for Sarah Jenkins in Blackwood, Pennsylvania. One result appeared: a woman near fifty outside a bakery, smiling softly at the camera.

Her features carried age and sadness, but there was kindness there too. I pressed the message icon before fear could stop me.

I wrote that I was Claire, Eleanor's daughter. I told her Mother had died last month and that I had learned about Bus 17.

I added that I understood the blizzard had not happened the way people claimed. Then I asked if she would speak with me.

After sending it, I watched the tiny gray mark beneath my words. My heart beat hard enough to make my throat ache.

Something slammed near the front of the house.

I shot up from the bed. The entry door had opened, then shut, and weighty footsteps crossed Mother's hardwood floor.

It was only eleven-thirty. David should have been sitting through a budget meeting on the other side of town.

“Claire?” he called. His voice held no affection. It was compressed, stripped of warmth.

I snatched up the yellowed pages and crammed them into the wooden music box. I replaced its bottom without the screws and shoved it beneath Mother's bed.

“Claire, your car is in the driveway. I know you’re here.”

The footsteps came down the hall, unhurried and certain. I stepped from the bedroom as he reached its doorway, nearly running into him.

He still wore his suit, although his tie hung loosened at his collar. His gaze passed over me and swept the disturbed bedroom behind me.

“Why are you here?” I asked. I tried to make the question sound irritated instead of terrified.

He took out his phone rather than answering. “I checked our family location sharing. You’ve been here three hours, though you said you were going to work.”

He had been watching my location.

“I came to sort through some of her clothes,” I said, folding my arms over my shaking hands. “Why did you leave your meeting?”

“I was concerned.” He moved closer, making the narrow corridor feel like it had walls closing in. “Those photographs have made you unstable.”

His expression did not change. “We should hire someone, clear this place out, and get rid of all of it today.”

“Get rid of it? These are my mother’s things.”

“They’re garbage, Claire.” His voice dropped lower. “The accumulation of a disturbed woman.”

His hand closed around my upper arm. He was not rough, exactly, but I could not shift his grip even an inch.

My phone vibrated inside my coat pocket. His eyes snapped downward.

“Who’s contacting you?” he asked.

“No one. Let me go.” I pulled against him, but he kept hold of my arm and reached into my pocket with his other hand.

The screen lit in his palm. I saw him read Sarah Jenkins’s reply from the notification before I could stop him.

Sarah had warned me not to contact her. Mother had concealed me for my safety, she said. A boy from the bus had hunted for Eleanor for forty years, and he knew who I was.

David read every word in silence. Through the wall, Mother's kitchen clock tapped out the seconds, delicate and horribly loud.

No rage crossed his face. That was worse. A polished stillness settled over him, wiping away the man I believed I had known for twelve years.

He erased Sarah’s message. Then he entered my Facebook settings, blocked her profile, and slipped my phone into his coat pocket.

“Scammers,” he said calmly. “They follow obituaries, target grieving people, and try to extort them. It’s vile.” His empty eyes fixed on me. “Come on. We’ll bag this junk and go home.”

I understood then that arguing would keep me from leaving this house. Mother had spent her life securing doors against a monster, and I was trapped inside with one. I let my shoulders sag, nodded like grief had finally exhausted me, and said I would fetch contractor bags from the garage.