The Bloody Jacket

Evelyn’s words hung in the air like the smell of the institutional bleach. *The Vance girl. Yes. The one who liked the blood.* Sarah felt the floor shift beneath her feet, a dizzying tilt that threatened to send her to her knees. She squeezed Evelyn’s hand, the old woman’s skin feeling like wet paper.

"Where is it, Evelyn? The proof. If my mother paid to seal it, what did she hide?"

Evelyn’s eyes clouded over again. The spark of clarity was dying, the fog of dementia rolling back in like a tide. "The closet," she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "The back closet. Under the floor... where the rot is."

Sarah didn't wait for more. She fled the senior center, the automatic doors hissing shut behind her. The drive back to the Victorian was a blur of manic speed and shallow breathing. She didn't care if Margaret was there. She didn't care if Elena’s cameras were watching.

She burst into the house, bypassing the living room where Margaret was likely nursing her grievance. She headed straight for the mudroom at the very back of the house, past the kitchen and the pantry. It was a space so thick with boxes it had been impassable for years.

Sarah began to tear through the hoard.

She threw old winter coats and bags of expired flour onto the floor. Dust filled her lungs, making her cough, but she didn't stop. She reached the back wall of the closet, a place where the cedar was stained with years of moisture from a leaking pipe.

The floorboards here were soft. They groaned under her weight, the scent of damp, decaying wood rising to meet her. Sarah dropped to her knees. She clawed at the edge of a loose board, the wood splintering under her fingernails until her fingertips bled.

She yanked.

The board came up with a wet, screeching sound.

Beneath the subfloor, tucked into the dark space between the joists, was a vacuum-sealed plastic bag. It was covered in a thick layer of gray silt and spiderwebs. Sarah reached in and pulled it out. The plastic was heavy, the contents inside stiff and unnaturally dark.

Her hands shook as she tore at the seal. The smell that escaped was old—metallic, copper-sharp, and cold.

Sarah reached inside and pulled the garment out. It wasn't an Italian art student's blouse.

Inside the bag was a middle school letterman jacket. It was stiff with twenty-seven-year-old blood. The name embroidered on it was 'David.'