Hide Seek Kill - A Thriller Novel || Draft One

Ten: Elizabeth

Elizabeth cautiously enters the small room, what appears to be a den, and sucks in a breath. She quickly regrets that when she starts coughing from all the dust particles in the air.

She looks around the room, and there isn't much there. A small couch, a dark oak coffee table, and a large, comfy armchair. A lamp in the opposite corner catches her eye. Eliza reaches for the string and turns the lamp on.

Click!

The warm light illuminates the room, scaring away all the shadows that were formed from the minimum sunlight that the passageway provided. There are no windows in the room to let in the natural luminescence.

Now that she can see, Eliza notices that there is a small cream colored envelope on the table. She picks it up only to quickly drop it again.

"No," she mumbles. "Oh my God. Just no..."

She picks it up once more with trepidation and reads her name written in her mother's fancy calligraphy. Eliza remembers the day she has found this. It was the evening after her parent's funeral.

Friends and family, neighbors and colleagues, they had come and gone throughout the day, and by seven at night, they'd all finally departed, seeing how exhausted Elizabeth and Isabelle were.

Zach stayed behind, and together he went upstairs with Eliza to tuck in Izzy. She had hummed I See the Light from Disney's Tangled. It was a favorite of her mother's, since Eliza and Izzy both enjoyed the movie and watched it constantly when it first came out. Eliza was a bit old for it even at the time, but her sister loved it so much that she couldn't help but fall in love with it too.

It was all Eliza could do to not cry and after Izzy's breathing slowed, the couple had crept out of the room, planning on heading to Elizabeth's room to talk and just be there.

But when they passed her parents' room, Eliza stopped. She wanted to go inside, even though Zach said that she didn't need to make herself feel worse. It was something she decided she had to do.

And so she looked around her parents' room, laying on their king-sized bed that still smelled like them. She went through her father's bookshelf, and her mother's cabinet filled with her special china and priceless books, one of which was an original signed copy of Pride and Prejudice, something that is very hard to get since it's such an old book.

Eliza knew where her mother kept the key, but didn't dare to open it. She knew how much it had meant to Mrs. Allens for the items to remain preserved. Plus, it had been something her mother had last touched; something that should forever remain only hers.

Instead of opening the cabinet, Eliza had found herself going through her mothers large jewelry box. There were many things inside, two of them being her parents' wedding rings. Eliza had made sure that they were put away safely after their death.

But she hadn't looked around to see what exactly was in the box. The jewelry box was about ten inches long, five inches deep, and six inches tall. It was made of rich, cedar wood painted a light pink with small detailed roses accenting the box. The drawers had knobs that looked like roses which were made of gold. The box's top lid was a half inch thick with a gold magnetic latch that was two halves of a rose when opened.

In the bottom drawer, beneath many valuable necklaces and bracelets, Elizabeth found a cream envelope addressed to her in her mother's beautiful calligraphy.

Zach saw what she found and suggested they head to her room and open it. The two had gone to her room, then, and ended up talking for a long time into the early hours of the morning. A heavy burden weighed on Eliza's shoulders, but Zach made the load a little lighter.