A Kiss at Midnight (Delilah and Caelum) novel Chapter 116

A Kiss At Midnight

A NEW CLUE

:

AG 93

55 vouchers

The door opens with a soft click, and for the first time in three years I was standing inside Daisy’s room.

My foot remains rooted at the entrance, but being able to move, as my fingers remained wrapped around the doorknob. My eyes slowly travel’s across rhe room, taking in every familiar details I had spent years refusing to look at.

It was spotless clean, with no sign of dust, not even a thin layer I had expected to find after a room had been untouched for so long.

It felt almost.. lived in

The curtains were still drawn halfway, allowing the late afternoon sunlight to filter through the closed windows. The paler walls looking exactly as I remember them,, and the bed was still neatly made with soft cream colour duvet lying perfectly across the mattress.

For a second I wondered if the maids had been coming in here to clean it up regularly, and if my parent had never allowed the room to the neglected, with how everything looked..preserved.

With Daisy’s room being a total constrast from mine, her room reflecting who she was. Books filling most of the shelves, neatly arranged, ranging from textbooks to novels, academic journal, notebook files with her handwriting, and folders stacked carefully beside her desk.

There were certificates and framed awards hanging on one wall, with photographs, pictures of her with our parents and her with me. But despite all the academic things, the room still looked unmistakably hers.

There were little feminine touches everywhere, a small jewelry box sat on her dresser with a few bottles of perfume were lined up beside it and a soft pink throw folded at the end of her bed.

It was warm, pretty, looking like the room of an eighteen year old girl who had simply stepped out and would be back any minute.

My throat tightens at this, and a small sound escapes me before I could stop it. Caelum immediately looks at me, “Do you need a minute?”

I shook my head quickly. “No,” my voice came out quieter than I intended as I gulped, looking back into the room, “let’s just..continue.”

He watches me for another second before nodding, our hands slowly falls from each other hold as we stepped fully inside. Taking another breath, one step at a time, that was all I could do.

My eyes moved around the room again until they landed on her desk and i instinctively walk toward it, everything was arranged neatly.

I ran my fingers lightly over the edge, stopping when I saw the photograp, the same one that had been in my room of both of us as children.

My missing front tooth was proudly on display, my hair pulled into two ridiculous little pigtails while she stood beside me with her arm around my shoulders.

1/6

9:57 Fri, Aug 28

A Kiss At Midnight

…

នគ

93

55 vouchers

I stared at it for a moment. “She kept this here too,” I murmur more tk myself, fighting back smile, before turning to Caelum who was waiting for me to give the go ahead.

Forcing yet another smile, I looked around the desk. “We should start here.”

He nodded. “What are we looking for exactly?”

“Anything,” I glanced at him, “a diary, notes, letters. Anything she might’ve written down, something that could tell us who she was talking about in that last message.”

He understood immediately. “Okay.”

We began searching, not recklessly and weren’t tearing through everything or throwing things onto the floor. Daisy had always been meticulous, and I couldn’t bring myself to destroy the order she had left behind.

I opened the drawers one at a time, taking in the pens, old assignment, few receipts, stationery. Nothing out of the ordinary. Caelum searches through the shelves while I checke the desk cabinets.

He pulled out notebooks, flipping through them carefully before returning them exactly where he had found them while I open another drawer and still nothing, my heart began to sink.

We move to the bookshelf and I check between books while he went through a stack of folders, then we search the bedside table, the dresser, the small storage cabinet beneath the window.

Still nothing

My frustration grew with every empty space. “Maybe it’s not here,” I whispered, Caelum looked over at me as

I sigh, shaking my head, “there has to be something right, anything..”

“Don’t give up yet,” he says quietly, “If your sister left something behind, we’ll find it.”

I crouch beside another drawer and search through it again, even though I had already checked it.

There had to be something, anything. Name..note.. clue..something that could explain who she had been talking about, but there was nothing.

Eventually, I stood and look around the room, everything was exactly where it had been, everything except the answers I needed.

“What if there was nothing?” Caelum remained quiet as I walk back toward the desk, “what if the person she mentioned wasn’t even someone important and was talking about a friend.”

I lean against the desk. “Maybe we’re reading too much into it, what if there was more to that message?” I continued, “what if we just don’t have enough of it to understand what she meant?”

“Maybe we’re looking for the wrong thing,” he says thoughtfully, coming closer to where I was, “your sister was smart, if she wanted something hidden, she probably wouldn’t have left it somewhere obvious.”

My fingers curled against the edge of the desk. “You really believe there’s an answer somewhere in this room?” I ask quietly, looking around, “because right now, I’m starting to wonder if I’m chasing something that was never there,” my chest tightens as he closes the remaining distance between us.

2/6

9:57 Fn, Aug 28

A Kiss At Midnight

55 vouchers

His hand came up to my face, his palm settling gently against my cheek. “You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,” his thumb brushed slowly across my cheek, “It’s our first time looking, If there’s an answer here, we’ll give ourselves the time to find it. We’re not going to find every answer in one afternoon.

“I know,” I whisper, my fingers tightening around the desk, “I just wanted to find something, even if it was small. One clue would be enough to tell me there’s still something left to uncover.”

“Then we’ll try again,” he says simply, “maybe not now, not when you are exhausted and frustrated. We’ll come back another day and search properly, looking through everything differently and hopefully we might find what ever it is we’ve missed today.”

I nod reluctantly, even though a part of me still aches. “Okay, another day,” I muttered softly, leaning slightly into his hand before straightening when my hand accidentally caught the edge of the stack of books beside me, sending them wobbling dangerously.

“Shit..” before I could catch them, the books slips from the desk, scattering across the floor and Caelum immediately crouches down, reaching for the nearest one.

“Sorry,” I murmur, dragging a hand through my hair, forcing myself to breathe as I stared at the books scattered across the floor.

“Don’t worry about it,” he picks them up one by one, carefully straightening the pages, stacking them neatly back together.

Get it together, Delilah

Since when had I ever been this much of an emotional mess? I was usually better at keeping myself composed, at thinking things through instead of letting every little thing get to me.

I bent down to help, but Caelum had already gathered most of them, leaving only a couple scattered across the floor. As I reach for one, something slipped free from between the books.

A photograph

It lands face down with a soft slap against the floor and I reach for it before Caelum could, turning it over in my hand, the back was white, covered in neat handwriting.

My eyes immediately caught on the date, September 8, 2020. Beneath it was a name..or at least what looks like one.

Little Starling

My brows pulled together at this. Little Starling? what kind of name was that?

I turned the photograph slightly between my fingers, studying the familiar handwriting as a strange unease settles in my chest.

Not having the time to dwell on the strange name, I slowly flip the photograph over and my breath caught when I caught sight of what looked like an ultrasound.

I stared at the grainy black and white image, my mind struggling to make sense of what I was seeing.

3/6

9:57 Fri, Aug 28

A Kiss At Midnight

A baby

55 vouchers

For several seconds, I couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink. There was no mistaking it,, my sister had kept an ultrasound photograph hidden between her books.

My eyes slowly drifts to Caelum to find him still at the desk, arranging the books into a neat stack, completely unaware of what I had just found. Then my gaze drops back to the photograph

September 8, 2020.

My fingers tightened around its edges as a realization hit me so suddenly that a sharp gasp escaped my lips, causing Caelum’s head to snap toward me.

“What?”

My hand move before I could think, slipping the photograph into my pocket, “Nothing, thought I saw a bug.”

His brow furrowed. “A bug?”

“Yeah,” I forced a small laugh, glancing toward the floor, “It startled me and I thought it was crawling toward

me.”

He studied me for a moment, clearly unconvince while I held my breath, then his gaze drops briefly to the floor before returning to me, “Okay.”

I gave him another small smile and turned away before he could see how badly my composure was slipping

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify