AFTER DARK DIARIES | ROMANCE

The Treasure Hunt Nobody Finished Part 2

Reader Recap…

Previously in The Treasure Hunt Nobody Finished…

After inheriting her Aunt Marcy’s house, Alice discovered a hidden letter addressed to Albert, the man Marcy had secretly loved more than fifty years earlier.

With Daniel’s help, she followed Marcy’s unfinished treasure hunt through the house and garden, uncovering memories of stolen kisses, Brighton, secret meetings and the future Marcy and Albert had once imagined together.

But the final discovery changed everything.

Marcy had chosen Albert. She had planned to run away with him and marry him at Gretna Green.

Albert never received her answer.

Instead, he disappeared without explanation.

Then Marcy’s old journal revealed something even more troubling. Shortly before he vanished, Albert had been asking questions about businessman Richard Vale, a man connected to Marcy’s father. Vale was found dead just days before Albert disappeared.

For fifty-two years, everyone assumed Albert had walked away from Marcy.

Alice was beginning to believe he hadn’t.

Finding Albert

By nine o’clock the following morning, Alice’s kitchen table had disappeared beneath Marcy’s journal, photographs, handwritten notes, newspaper printouts and two mugs containing coffee that had long since gone cold.

Sleep had been equally unsuccessful.

Every time she closed her eyes, the same five facts rearranged themselves.

Richard Vale had known her grandfather. Albert had asked Marcy about him. He’d said he’d seen something. Four days after Vale’s death was reported as suicide, Albert disappeared.

Coincidence was still possible.

It simply didn’t feel like one.

The doorbell rang shortly after nine.

Daniel stood outside holding coffee and a paper bag.

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

“Didn’t sleep?”

“I’ve been investigating.”

“That’s a no, then.”

He stepped inside and surveyed the kitchen table.

“Have you discovered who killed Richard Vale?”

Alice gave him a look.

“I don’t even know that anyone killed Richard Vale.”

“Good.”

That wasn’t the response she’d expected.

Daniel put fresh coffee in front of her.

“If we’re going to do this, we don’t decide what happened and then find evidence to fit it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Alice looked at the photograph of Marcy and Albert in Brighton.

She wanted there to be an explanation.

More dangerously, she wanted an explanation that absolved Albert.

Daniel was right.

“We follow what we can prove.”

“Exactly.”

He opened the paper bag.

Alice reached inside.

“Those are mine.”

“I bought them.”

“You brought provisions to an investigation. They’ve become communal property.”

“That’s not how communal property works.”

“It’s how breakfast works.”

His smile appeared.

For a few seconds, dead businessmen and fifty-two-year-old mysteries retreated from the kitchen.

Then Alice opened Marcy’s journal.

“Let’s find Richard Vale.”

A Death Nobody Questioned

The first newspaper reports gave them very little.

Richard Vale had been thirty-nine when he died in 1974. He owned a successful engineering company, supported several local charities and occasionally attended political fundraisers.

His death had been recorded as suicide.

There had been an inquest.

No suspicious circumstances were reported.

Nothing connected him to Albert Holloway.

Rather than searching for murder, Alice and Daniel searched for names.

That distinction proved useful.

An archived report about a political fundraising dinner appeared first.

Marcy’s father had attended.

So had Vale.

A third man in the accompanying photograph was identified as Gerald Mercer, a local property developer and political donor.

Mercer’s name appeared again in reports concerning a proposed commercial development. Vale’s engineering company had been involved during its early stages, although the precise relationship wasn’t clear.

Then came a small article about a disagreement over finances.

Nothing criminal was alleged.

“That’s it?” Alice asked.

Daniel leaned closer to the laptop.

“At the moment.”

“Vale has an argument about money, dies, and four days later Albert disappears.”

“Which is interesting.”

“Very.”

“But not proof.”

Alice sighed.

“You’ve become incredibly annoying since we started this.”

“I’ve always been annoying. You just didn’t know me well enough.”

That made her smile.

The next useful name came from somewhere completely different.

Marcy’s journal.

Two days before Albert disappeared, she’d written:

He spoke to Tommy again tonight. I don’t know what about. Albert wouldn’t tell me.

Tommy.

No surname.

Finding him took three days.

Someone Who Remembered

Alice eventually found an old newspaper photograph of the garage where Albert had worked.

Five young men stood beside a row of cars.

The caption named them.

Thomas Reed was standing beside Albert.

Electoral records led to a man of the same name outside Bury St Edmunds.

Eighty-three years old.

Possibly alive.

Alice telephoned.

A man’s voice answered.

“Mr Reed?”

“Who’s asking?”

“My name is Alice Whitmore. I’m trying to find somebody you may have known a long time ago. Albert Holloway.”

Silence.

Alice sat straighter.

“Mr Reed?”

“Where did you get my number?”

“Public records.”

“Why are you looking for Albert?”

“My aunt knew him.”

Another pause.

“Who was your aunt?”

“Marcy Whitmore.”

The silence this time was different.

“Marcy?”

“You knew her?”

“Knew of her.”

Alice glanced at Daniel, who was sitting opposite.

“My aunt died recently. I’ve found some things she kept from that time. I’m trying to understand what happened to Albert.”

Thomas’s voice hardened.

“Can’t help you.”

“Mr Reed…”

“Sorry.”

The call ended.

Alice stared at her phone.

Daniel spoke first.

“He knew something.”

“Definitely.”

“Or he just doesn’t like strangers telephoning him about something that happened fifty years ago.”

“You’re doing that irritating reasonable thing again.”

“Someone has to.”

She looked at the number.

“I’m calling him back.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because he knows how to reach you now.”

Daniel was right again.

Alice disliked how frequently that was happening.

Thomas Reed telephoned the following evening.

The Secret Thomas Had Kept

They met two days later.

Thomas lived alone in a neat bungalow on the edge of a village. He was thin, white-haired and cautious with every word.

Alice had brought the Brighton photograph.

She placed it on the table.

His expression changed immediately.

“Bloody hell.”

One finger touched Albert’s face.

“Haven’t seen that idiot in a lifetime.”

Alice smiled.

“He looks happy.”

“He was.”

Thomas glanced at Marcy.

“Because of her.”

The words mattered more than Alice expected.

“Did you know about them?”

“Everybody at work knew about Marcy. Albert couldn’t shut up about her.”

Alice laughed softly.

That sounded like the man she’d met through Marcy’s letters.

Then she asked the question that had brought her there.

“What happened?”

Thomas’s expression closed.

“I don’t know all of it.”

“Tell me what you do know.”

For a while he said nothing.

Eventually, he pointed towards the photograph.

“Albert saw something he shouldn’t have.”

Alice’s pulse quickened.

“Richard Vale?”

Thomas looked at her sharply.

“You know about Vale?”

“Only that he died just before Albert disappeared.”

The old man stood and walked towards the window.

“I’ve spent half my life telling myself it wasn’t my business.”

“Was Vale murdered?”

“I don’t know.”

That answer surprised her.

Thomas turned.

“Neither did Albert.”

What Albert Actually Saw

The story came slowly.

Albert had been asked to return a repaired car to a large country property one evening.

The owner wasn’t home.

Someone told him to leave the keys.

As Albert walked back towards the road, he heard men arguing behind one of the outbuildings.

Richard Vale was there.

So was Gerald Mercer.

Albert recognised both because he’d seen them before around town and in newspaper photographs.

A third man stood with them.

Thomas never knew his name.

“They were arguing about money,” he said. “And papers. Albert said Vale kept saying he wasn’t taking the blame.”

“What happened?”

“Mercer hit him.”

“Once?”

“No.”

Thomas looked uncomfortable.

“Albert said it got ugly. Vale tried to get away. One of them pulled him back. He went down.”

“Was he dead?”

“Albert didn’t know. Said Vale was moving when he left.”

Alice frowned.

“So Albert didn’t witness a murder.”

“No.”

That distinction was important.

“What frightened him, then?”

“The next morning Vale was found dead.”

Alice felt a chill.

“At the same place?”

Thomas shook his head.

“At his own house.”

That was the piece she’d been missing.

Somewhere between Albert witnessing the assault and the following morning, Richard Vale had returned, or been taken, home.

The official account said he’d taken his own life.

Albert knew only one thing.

Hours earlier, he’d seen Vale being violently attacked by men with something to lose.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing at first.”

Thomas’s expression tightened.

“Then his conscience got to him.”

Albert knew a local police officer slightly. Not a close friend, simply someone who occasionally came into the garage.

He approached him privately.

Albert didn’t make a formal statement.

He described what he’d witnessed and asked what he should do.

“Two nights later,” Thomas said, “somebody answered the question for him.”

The Warning

They caught Albert walking home.

Two men.

He never identified either of them.

They beat him badly enough that Thomas wanted to take him to hospital.

Albert refused.

“They knew everything,” Thomas said.

“What do you mean?”

“They knew he’d spoken to the police. Knew where he worked.”

Thomas hesitated.

“And they knew about Marcy.”

Alice went still.

“What did they say?”

“That if Albert opened his mouth again, something might happen to her.”

The room seemed suddenly smaller.

“They used her name?”

“Yes.”

“Did they mention my grandfather?”

“No.”

“Mercer?”

“No.”

Thomas shook his head.

“Albert didn’t know who sent them. Neither did I.”

Alice was almost relieved.

The story was frightening enough without conveniently tying every thread into one villain.

“What happened next?”

“I hid him.”

The Night Albert Left Suffolk

Thomas’s brother had an empty room.

Albert spent two nights there.

“He looked awful,” Thomas said. “Could barely breathe properly on one side. I thought they’d broken his ribs.”

“Why didn’t he go to Marcy?”

“He wanted to.”

That answer hurt.

Thomas remembered trying to talk him out of it.

Albert was convinced the threat against Marcy was real.

Her father’s position made matters worse, not better. Albert had no idea whether the people involved were merely acquaintances of Marcy’s father or whether the connections went deeper.

“He kept saying he’d go away until it settled down.”

“So he didn’t mean to disappear permanently?”

“No.”

Thomas looked at Alice.

“He thought he’d be gone a few weeks.”

Alice swallowed.

Marcy had spent those same weeks searching hospitals and railway stations.

“Where did he go?”

“Manchester. Cousin of his lived there.”

“Did you ever hear from him?”

“Once.”

Thomas disappeared into another room and returned carrying an old address book.

Inside was an address in Manchester.

“He sent me a Christmas card. Said he was all right and moving on.”

“Nothing about Marcy?”

Thomas hesitated.

“One sentence.”

“What?”

“He said she’d made her choice.”

Alice stared at him.

“What choice?”

“No idea.”

That made no sense.

Marcy had chosen Albert.

Alice had the letter proving it.

The Letter Nobody Knew About

The Manchester address was their first genuine lead.

Before following it, Alice returned to Marcy’s journal.

She read every entry from the month Albert disappeared.

Nothing.

No argument.

No rejection.

No decision to end their relationship.

Quite the opposite.

Marcy had been preparing to run away with him.

“Then why did he think she’d chosen somebody else?” Alice asked.

Daniel was sitting on the kitchen floor with his back against a cupboard, eating toast.

“Maybe somebody told him.”

“Who?”

“No idea.”

“Her father?”

“Possible.”

“Mercer?”

“Also possible.”

Alice closed the journal.

“We’re guessing again.”

“Exactly.”

She looked down at him.

“I hate it when you use my own rules against me.”

“They were my rules.”

“Even worse.”

Daniel smiled.

They had spent so much time together recently that his presence in Marcy’s house no longer felt unusual.

That realisation unsettled Alice slightly.

Not because she minded.

Because she didn’t.

Following Albert North

Manchester produced an address.

The address produced a cousin’s name.

His cousin had died years earlier, but a surviving daughter remembered hearing about Albert.

“Uncle Albert?”

Alice almost dropped the phone.

“You knew him?”

“Not really. Dad mentioned him.”

According to her, Albert stayed for several months before leaving Manchester.

He’d found work.

Then abruptly moved again.

“Do you know why?”

“Not really. Dad once said something happened that frightened him.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Only that Albert left very suddenly.”

From there, the trail became harder.

Old employment records suggested Birmingham.

A man with the right full name appeared in Bristol several years later.

Twice Alice and Daniel followed records belonging to the wrong person.

One Saturday they drove almost three hours to speak to a woman whose father had once rented a room to an Albert Holloway.

Wrong Albert.

On the return journey, rain hammered against the windscreen.

Alice stared through it.

“We’re never going to find him.”

“Probably not tonight.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“He could have changed his name. Gone abroad. Died forty years ago.”

“He could.”

“You’re supposed to tell me I’m wrong.”

Daniel kept his eyes on the road.

“I’m supposed to help you find the truth.”

Alice turned towards the window.

She knew he was right.

That didn’t make her less irritated.

The Things We Leave Too Late

They stopped at a pub for dinner.

Halfway through the meal, Daniel nudged her foot beneath the table.

“Still angry with me?”

“I wasn’t angry.”

“Of course.”

“I was frustrated.”

“At me.”

“Adjacent to you.”

He laughed.

Alice tried not to.

Failed.

For a while they talked about everything except Albert.

Work.

Friends.

A disastrous holiday Daniel had taken in Greece.

Then Alice became quiet.

“Marcy thought she had time.”

Daniel looked at her.

“So did Albert.”

“That’s what’s getting to me.”

She turned her wine glass between her fingers.

“They weren’t careless with each other. They didn’t fall out. They didn’t stop loving each other. They just thought there would be another conversation.”

“Most of us do.”

“Exactly.”

Alice looked at him.

“How many things do people leave unsaid because they assume they’ll get another chance?”

Daniel didn’t answer immediately.

“Quite a few.”

The space between them changed.

Alice felt it.

So did he.

Outside, the rain had softened by the time they left.

Beneath the pub’s small awning, Daniel reached for her hand.

Not accidentally.

Alice looked at their fingers.

Then at him.

“Daniel.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“I’ve got a reasonable idea.”

“What?”

He stepped closer.

“Probably something unnecessarily complicated.”

Alice kissed him.

The Kiss They Had Been Avoiding

It wasn’t tentative for long.

Weeks of almost touching, late-night messages and finding reasons to spend another hour together collapsed into one kiss.

Daniel’s hand settled at her waist.

Alice caught the front of his coat and pulled him closer.

Rain dripped from the edge of the awning inches away.

When they separated, she was breathless.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“Liar.”

She laughed against his mouth.

The second kiss was slower.

Something about it felt less like beginning and more like finally admitting what had already happened.

Later, back at Marcy’s house, neither went immediately upstairs.

They sat in the kitchen.

Daniel poured two glasses of wine.

Alice watched him move around a room that had belonged to her aunt and wondered when he’d started looking as though he belonged there too.

“Do you regret it?” he asked.

“The kiss?”

“No, the terrible chips we had last week.”

She smiled.

“Daniel.”

His expression softened.

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

He reached across the table.

Alice placed her hand in his.

“I don’t want Marcy and Albert to be the reason we do something stupid.”

“They aren’t.”

“And I don’t want them to be the reason we don’t.”

“They aren’t that either.”

Alice breathed out.

“Good.”

Daniel’s thumb moved across her fingers.

“What do you want?”

This time she didn’t hide behind a joke.

“You.”

No More Clues Tonight

Alice kissed him first.

They went upstairs together.

Once the bedroom door closed, the urgency that had followed them from the pub softened.

There was laughter when Daniel nearly walked into the corner of the bed.

Nerves too.

Clothes came away between kisses rather than in some perfectly choreographed rush.

His hands moved slowly across her skin.

Alice discovered the intimacy she’d anticipated wasn’t in being undressed.

It was in being looked at without needing to hide.

For weeks, they’d been chasing a love story built around secrecy.

Tonight there were no hidden notes.

No fathers to deceive.

No one waiting to tell either of them whom they were permitted to want.

Daniel kissed her shoulder.

The thought of Marcy’s Brighton letter flickered through Alice’s mind and disappeared.

This belonged to them.

Later, she lay with her cheek against his chest while his fingertips moved lazily along her back.

“Do you think this is Marcy’s fault?” he asked.

Alice lifted her head.

“Excuse me?”

“The treasure hunt.”

“You are not blaming my dead aunt for sleeping with me.”

“I’m giving her appropriate credit.”

Alice laughed.

Daniel kissed her forehead.

“I’m glad you found that box.”

So was she.

The Trail Moves South

Their search continued.

Albert’s full name finally appeared on an employment record from Bristol.

Albert James Holloway.

That middle name made all the difference.

A marriage certificate followed.

Albert James Holloway and Patricia Anne Collins.

Alice stared at the screen.

Something inside her sank.

“He married.”

Daniel read over her shoulder.

“Yes.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Alice felt ashamed of her disappointment.

“Of course he did.”

“He was entitled to.”

“I know.”

Marcy had lived after Albert.

Why shouldn’t Albert have done the same?

Further records showed Patricia died in 2019.

No children appeared in anything Alice could find.

More importantly, Albert’s name continued.

A record from 2024.

Somerset.

Alice stared at the date.

“Daniel.”

He leaned towards the screen.

For once, he had no joke.

“He could still be alive.”

Daniel looked at her.

“Then perhaps we should stop talking about him as though he isn’t.”

A Letter Sent Fifty-Two Years Later

Alice didn’t contact Albert immediately.

Finding an address had transformed him.

Until then, Albert had been a photograph, a collection of records and a young man’s voice preserved inside Marcy’s handwriting.

Now he might answer the telephone.

He might open a door.

Worse, he might tell Alice that everything she’d believed about him was wrong.

“What if he doesn’t want to know?” she asked.

Daniel considered it.

“Then you respect that.”

“What if Marcy meant nothing to him in the end?”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know.”

That was the truth.

Eventually Alice wrote.

Dear Mr Holloway,

My name is Alice Whitmore. Marcy Whitmore was my aunt.

She stopped there for almost ten minutes.

Then continued.

She died recently and left me her house.

While sorting through her belongings, I found something she intended you to receive in 1974.

I don’t know whether hearing from me will be welcome. If it isn’t, I won’t contact you again.

But I thought you should have the choice.

She added her telephone number.

The letter went into the post.

Five days passed.

Then seven.

On the ninth evening, Alice’s phone rang.

Unknown number.

“Hello?”

An elderly man’s voice answered.

“Is this Alice?”

She sat down.

“Yes.”

A pause followed.

“This is Albert Holloway.”

The Man at the End of Marcy’s Treasure Hunt

Albert agreed to meet.

Daniel drove with Alice to Somerset but didn’t go to the house.

“This bit is yours,” he said.

Alice shook her head.

“Marcy’s.”

Albert lived in a small stone cottage at the edge of a village.

For several seconds after Alice knocked, nothing happened.

Then the door opened.

Time had altered almost everything.

His hair was white. His shoulders stooped slightly, and the young man’s face from Brighton had softened into age.

The eyes were the same.

Alice recognised them immediately.

“You’re Marcy’s niece.”

“Yes.”

Albert looked at the wooden box beneath her arm.

His expression changed.

“Come in.”

The sitting room was warm and ordinary.

Books.

Family photographs.

A framed picture of a smiling woman Alice assumed was Patricia.

That photograph reassured her somehow.

Albert had loved again.

They sat opposite each other.

Neither seemed to know where to begin.

Finally Albert asked, “How is she?”

Alice’s heart broke.

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry. Marcy died a few months ago.”

Albert closed his eyes.

The silence lasted long enough for Alice to hear the clock on the mantelpiece.

Eventually he whispered, “I always thought I’d know somehow.”

The Letter Marcy Never Wrote

Alice told him about inheriting the house.

The wooden box.

The first love letter.

Albert frowned.

“What letter?”

“The one Marcy wrote for you.”

“I never received anything.”

“I know.”

He looked genuinely bewildered.

Alice explained the treasure hunt.

The oak.

The blue silk.

Brighton.

With every detail, Albert’s expression became harder to read.

Then he stood abruptly.

“Wait here.”

He disappeared upstairs.

When he returned, an old envelope was in his hand.

“I wrote to her.”

Alice’s pulse quickened.

“When?”

“After I left.”

Albert sat down.

“I couldn’t tell her everything. I was frightened the letter might be read by somebody else. I told her I had to go away and that I was safe.”

“Where did you send it?”

“Her house.”

Marcy’s father’s house.

The obvious danger struck Alice immediately.

“Did you give her an address?”

“Not at first.”

Albert explained.

His original letter told Marcy that he would write again.

A week later, after moving to Manchester, he sent a second letter containing a poste restante arrangement and asking her to reply there under his name.

He waited.

For nearly two weeks, nothing came.

Then an envelope arrived.

“I recognised the writing,” Albert said.

“You thought it was hers?”

“Of course.”

He handed Alice the letter.

The paper had been preserved carefully.

Albert, please do not contact me again.

Alice read on.

The writer said Marcy had chosen her family.

Whatever existed between them was finished.

Albert was told to stay away and never write again.

At the bottom:

Marcy.

Alice stared at the handwriting.

Something was wrong.

Not dramatically.

Whoever had written it had known Marcy’s hand.

The imitation was good.

But Alice had spent weeks reading hundreds of pages written by her aunt.

Marcy’s capital M began with a distinctive long descending stroke.

This one didn’t.

The r was too tight.

Her y normally finished with a loose backwards curve.

Here it ended abruptly.

Alice placed the forged letter on the table.

From the wooden box she removed Marcy’s first letter.

Side by side, the differences became obvious.

Albert watched her.

“What?”

Alice looked at him.

“She didn’t write this.”

He stared.

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t Marcy’s handwriting.”

“Of course it is.”

“No.”

Alice turned both pages towards him.

“Look at her name.”

Albert did.

His expression slowly changed.

“Look at the M.”

He looked again.

Then the y.

His fingers began to tremble.

“She didn’t write it,” he whispered.

“No.”

Fifty-Two Years Rearranged

Albert sat back.

For a long time he said nothing.

Alice didn’t fill the silence.

Finally he asked, “Who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Her father?”

“Maybe.”

Marcy’s father was the obvious possibility. He disapproved of Albert and had access to the house.

But obvious wasn’t the same as proven.

Someone in the household could have intercepted the letters. Perhaps the forgery had even been connected to the men who threatened Albert.

Fifty-two years later, Alice had no evidence strong enough to accuse any of them.

The Answer Albert Never Received

She gave him the treasure hunt in order.

Albert read the piece from the oak first.

A laugh escaped him.

“I wasn’t shaking.”

“Marcy disagreed.”

“She always did.”

The blue slip made him close his eyes.

“Good God.”

“I had approximately the same reaction.”

A faint blush appeared on an almost eighty-year-old man’s face.

Alice loved Marcy for that.

Then came Brighton.

Albert held the photograph for a long time.

“That guesthouse was awful.”

“Apparently you wanted a shed.”

His head lifted sharply.

“She wrote that?”

“She did.”

Albert laughed.

“I’d forgotten.”

“She hadn’t.”

The laughter faded.

Alice told him about the journal.

Marcy searching his lodgings.

The hospital.

York.

King’s Cross.

Years of wondering.

Albert’s eyes filled.

“She looked for me?”

“For a long time.”

He covered his mouth with one hand.

Alice waited.

When he finally lowered it, his voice was unsteady.

“I spent years trying not to hate her.”

She said nothing.

“Then I realised I couldn’t.”

Albert looked at the forged letter.

“So I just loved her instead.”

Alice blinked back tears.

One page remained.

She placed it in front of him.

“This was the end.”

Albert unfolded it.

Alice watched him read.

My darling Albert,

If you’ve found this, then you know my answer.

His eyes moved lower.

Yes.

Albert stopped.

The room became completely still.

Yes to you. Yes to us. Yes to a life that belongs to us rather than everybody who thinks they know what is best for me.

His hand began to tremble.

Meet me at the station on Friday at six.

I’ll have my case.

You bring yours.

We’re going to Gretna Green.

Albert lowered the page.

“She was going to marry me.”

“Yes.”

“I thought she’d chosen them.”

“She chose you.”

He pressed the letter against his lips.

Alice looked away.

Some grief deserved privacy.

Minutes passed.

Eventually Albert spoke.

“Do you know what’s ridiculous?”

“What?”

“I still remember what I was going to wear the next time I saw her.”

Alice laughed through her tears.

“Albert?”

“Yes?”

“If you’d received the first letter… if you’d followed the treasure hunt and found this…”

She didn’t need to finish.

His smile appeared slowly.

For the first time, Alice could see the young man on Brighton Pier.

“I’d have gone.”

The Part Thomas Never Knew

Before Alice left, Albert answered one final question.

“Why did you keep moving?”

“The men who attacked me found me once.”

Alice stared at him.

“In Manchester?”

He nodded.

Not face-to-face.

A message had been left at his cousin’s house.

Three words.

We know where.

Albert left the following morning.

That explained Birmingham.

Later Bristol.

Eventually enough years passed that nobody seemed to be looking anymore.

“Did you ever find out what really happened to Richard Vale?”

“No.”

“Did you know Gerald Mercer was involved?”

“I knew what I saw.”

Albert shook his head.

“Anything after that would be guessing.”

Again, the answer was imperfect.

Alice had learned to appreciate imperfect answers.

Richard Vale’s death might always remain officially a suicide.

Who sent Albert’s attackers might never be known.

The identity of the person who forged Marcy’s letter could remain hidden forever.

None of those uncertainties changed the truth Alice had come to deliver.

Albert hadn’t willingly abandoned Marcy.

Marcy hadn’t rejected Albert.

Someone else had stolen their choice.

Finishing the Treasure Hunt

“Can I keep these?” Albert asked.

Alice looked at the letters spread across the table.

“They were always yours.”

His fingers rested on Marcy’s final page.

“I suppose I finally finished her treasure hunt.”

Alice smiled.

“I think she’d say you took long enough.”

Albert laughed.

It was the right sound to leave him with.

Outside, Daniel was waiting in the car at the end of the lane.

Alice had told him not to come to Albert’s door.

She hadn’t told him he couldn’t come to Somerset.

When she opened the passenger door, he took one look at her.

“Well?”

Alice sat down.

“He’d have gone.”

Daniel understood immediately.

“Oh, Alice.”

She leaned across the console and wrapped her arms around him.

For a while neither spoke.

Then Daniel asked, “Did he have the letter?”

“The forged one? Yes.”

“And?”

“Marcy didn’t write it.”

Alice explained.

Daniel listened without interrupting.

“What about your grandfather?”

“We don’t know.”

“Do you want to?”

She thought about it.

Part of her did.

Another part understood what months inside Marcy’s hidden past had taught her.

Knowing everything wasn’t always possible.

Knowing what mattered sometimes was.

“No.”

Daniel looked surprised.

“I think I’m finished.”

“With Albert?”

“With trying to make every unanswered question give me something.”

She looked back towards the cottage.

“He knows she loved him. He knows she chose him.”

Daniel reached for her hand.

“And Marcy?”

Alice smiled sadly.

“I think she always knew how much she’d loved him.”

What Marcy Left Behind

They returned to Suffolk late that evening.

Alice unlocked the house and walked into the sitting room.

The flowered ginger jar remained on its table.

Daniel pointed at it.

“You’re keeping that, aren’t you?”

“Obviously.”

“It’s hideous.”

Alice turned.

“Get out.”

He laughed.

She didn’t.

Instead, she crossed the room and kissed him.

His arms settled around her waist.

The kiss was familiar now.

That surprised Alice.

Not ordinary.

Not less exciting.

Simply theirs.

“What happens next?” Daniel asked.

A few months earlier, Alice would probably have made a joke.

Tonight she didn’t.

“I’ve spent weeks reading about two people who loved each other and thought there’d always be another chance to say what they meant.”

Daniel’s expression softened.

“So I’m not doing that.”

“Alice…”

“I don’t know exactly what this becomes.”

“Neither do I.”

“But I know I want to find out.”

His forehead rested against hers.

“Good.”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“I had a speech.”

“You did not.”

“It was magnificent.”

“Go on, then.”

“I’ve forgotten it.”

Alice laughed.

Daniel kissed her again.

Then, against her mouth, he said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

This time she believed there would be another conversation.

Not because life had promised one.

Because they had chosen to have it.

The Love Letter That Finally Came Home

The following morning, Alice walked into the garden alone.

Autumn had thinned the oak’s branches.

She stood beneath the hollow where the treasure hunt had begun and placed her palm against the bark.

Marcy had once kissed Albert there in the rain.

Decades later, she’d refused to let anyone cut the tree down.

Because some things have earned the right to stay.

Alice finally understood.

Marcy and Albert had lost the future they should have had together. No discovery could return the marriage, children, arguments, ordinary Sundays or ridiculous garden shed they might have shared.

Yet their love hadn’t disappeared simply because life interrupted it.

Pieces of it had remained beneath an old drawer, behind respectable books and inside the hollow of an ancient tree, waiting long after anyone expected them to be found.

Marcy had preserved the rest in ink, photographs and memories scattered through the house.

Alice had inherited far more than bricks, furniture and a garden.

She had inherited an unfinished story.

Now Albert knew its ending.

Fifty-two years late, Marcy’s answer had finally reached the man it had always been meant for.

Thank You for Reading

Thank you for joining Alice, Daniel, Marcy and Albert through The Treasure Hunt Nobody Finished.

Some love stories are about finding the right person. Others are about the words we leave unsaid, the choices taken from us, and the moments we assume we’ll have another chance to explain.

We hope this one stays with you for a little while.

Eva Morello
After Dark Diaries

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