Therapy Bits

A search of the woman’s desk revealed previously unknown details about her dark past.

The drawer slid open with a reluctant squeal, as if warning against the intrusion. Inside, beneath neat stacks of invoices and faded stationery, lay a bundle of letters tied with a fraying crimson ribbon. The handwriting was elegant, but the words scrawled across the top envelope carried a tremor of desperation: For when it all catches up to me.

Detective Harris paused, the sound of the storm rattling against the old house. Until now, Mrs. Ellison had been the perfect neighbor in every account—kind to the local children, generous with her garden’s harvest, a quiet widow who rarely asked for anything. But the papers told another story.

One letter mentioned a fire in Chicago, 1978, the night a warehouse burned with three men trapped inside. Another hinted at debts to men whose names Harris recognized from case files on organized crime. The final note, tucked at the very bottom, was the most chilling: a confession written to a daughter no one knew existed.

You were never meant to find out what I did. They think your father died in an accident, but I must tell you the truth—I lit the match.

The storm outside swelled into a howl as Harris folded the letters back together. Suddenly, the image of Mrs. Ellison’s gentle smile took on a new edge—something watchful, calculating. She wasn’t the helpless old woman the neighborhood adored. She was someone who had survived by burying the past deep beneath layers of kindness.

But now, the earth was shifting. And the secrets clawed their way up.

Fandango’s Story Starter #220 – Facts, Fictions & Fantasies