Chapter 1

It had been 167 days since Faith Spencer had said goodbye one last time to her mother. She sat quietly in the dimly lit storage cove in the bottom of Susan Spencer's apartment unit. Faith waded through the last of her mother's things, old boxes full of memories long past, not from her youth, but her mothers. Things that had gone from house to house, apartment to apartment. Faith opened the boxes to sort them into her piles, the large one destined for Goodwill and the relatively small pile of things of her mothers she just couldn't bare to part with. A few journals with photos sticking out of them, a jewellery box, her mothers class ring. It was a nice class ring, adorned with the usual school and graduation year, a mother of pearl stone set into the antiqued yellow gold. She slipped the vintage ring over her middle finger, brushing her fingertips over the face of it as tears began to slip down her cheeks. Faith leaned back against the flimsy unit divider and slid down to the floor. She knew that this was the last of it, and that as much as she wanted it to be over, she wasn't ready. She was ready for the memories that flooded back and tore her heart out with every item that she touched to stop but she knew that once everything was sorted through and given away, that there would nothing left for her to do. Her mother was really gone, and she was alone and the looming thought of that loneliness was terrifying. But that was a bridge to cross on another day.

She blew out a deep breath while she wiped the damp tear trails away with her palms. She stood up and roughly scratched at her head. She shoved two junk boxes aside with her sneaker clad foot to reveal a panel of wood. Faith's eyes went wide as she put her auburn hair up in a ponytail.

"Holy shit, I forgot about this thing," She said under her breath.

She tossed a garbage bag of pillows behind her, revealing her find. Her mom's hope chest. Faith hated the thing. It was a monster piece of furniture, solid cedar, and very heavy. She opened the hefty hinged lid. Stale cedar smell hit her nose and she wrinkled her face in disgust. She knew that most of its contents were old linens, all destined for their next owner through the local Goodwill store. Faith grabbed a fresh garbage bag from her pile and began to shove the piles of folded cloth into the bag. She grabbed another handful, wondering how many tablecloths someone who hadn't had a formal dining room table could possibly need. As she settled on the answer of way too many in her head, her hand felt something solid among the pile in her hands. She dropped the bag and unwound the linen. Cradled inside the massive piece of cloth was a small brown book. It was trimmed in a faded gold metal and a small gold medal adorned the cover, the words 'Holy Bible' in a simple, elegant script etched into it. Faith delicately flipped through the thin pages, studying it intently. She had been through her mom's hope chest before but could never remember ever seeing this in here. She actually couldn't remember seeing it anywhere, ever. Her mother, a lapsed Catholic, had never really been one for Bibles around the house. She was always more Stephen King than King James, a trait Faith had also inherited from her mother. She knew that it was old, very old but being able to determine its age was not a skill set that she possessed. She wrapped it carefully back up in the large ivory tablecloth and reached into the pocket of her faded jeans. She quickly scrolled through her contacts and hit dial. Holding the ringing phone up to her ear, she put the wrapped Bible on top of her keep pile.

"Hey Aunt Mary, it's Faith. ...I'm hanging in there ya know. Um I got- ...yes, yes I've been eating," she said rolling her eyes with a small smile on her face. "Aunt Mare, I just got a quick question. You remember Gramps Navy buddy? The one that would just randomly show up and they'd end up at a poker game or drunk in the basement or something like that? He was an archivist or researcher? Yeah. You remember his name? ...His number? Even better. Hang on lemme get a pen."

She stuck her hand blindly into the small green army medic bag that she had been using as a purse for years. Her hand emerged with a beat up orange planner with a pen in it. She flipped the planner open to the back cover, already covered in miscellaneous date, names and numbers.

"Ok, go for it. Uh huh...uh huh...yep. Perfect. Thanks Aunt Mary. ...You know I'll keep in touch. Love you too. Bye."

Faith furiously pressed the end button on her phone until the home screen shone bright again. She slipped her phone back into her pocket and retraced the numbers she had just wrote down on the cheap card stock cover of the planner, darkening them. She also traced the name, bringing it from almost unreadable to a dark bold blue, muttering the name to herself as she traced over the letters.

Victor Sullivan.