Classified ☑

[ chapter 16 ]

The paper in front of me held zero hope. It was instructions on how to figure out if something was wrong with the washer. Disappointment flooded through my veins, turning my excitement into irritation.

The only thing that belonged to my father was his handwriting on the paper. On it, he'd written dial and then then ten numbers, most likely a phone number for my Uncle to call. There were no hyphens, and only a line scratched underneath some of the numbers.

"That's it?" Cole asked, peering over Joseph and me.

Joseph stood up and Cole backed away to give him room. The look on Joseph's face matched mine. "Well-"

Before Joseph could finish his sentence, a voice interrupted us. "What do the three of you think you're doing?" Thomas asked in a stern voice. Gracie stood behind him as the two of them stood in the doorway to the cramped laundry room.

Cole, Joseph, and I were so focused we hadn't even heard anyone come into the house.

"Nothing," I responded quickly, almost too quickly. "We were just fixing the washer for you."

Thomas raised a disapproving eyebrow and moved out of the way so the three of us could file out of the laundry room. Cole went first with Joseph behind him. While no one was looking I took a quick picture of the page with my phone and stuffed the paper into my back pocket.

Gracie and Thomas lead us to the living room and had us sit on the couch in front of them. I sat in between Cole and Joseph as my Uncle looked at the three of us. "What made you think that the three of you needed to fix the washer?"

I leaned towards the side coffee table over Joseph and grabbed the letter my father wrote for my uncle, handing it over to him. Thomas wasn't going to be happy that I opened a letter that was addressed for him, but something had taken over me in the moment. I wanted to read words that my dad had wrote.

Thomas' eyes scanned over the envelope before taking the piece of paper out of it. "I didn't even know that Clint sent me something." His words hung in the air around us. Gracie wrapped a small hand around his forearm to comfort him.

What I wanted to say was the house has been a mess, so how could you? But I didn't. "While we were cleaning up, Joseph found it," I said instead.

Thomas looked at Joseph and sighed. "Nina, it's time for Cole to leave."

"Bu-"

"Now." The cold tone in Thomas' voice told me all I needed to know. I didn't have a choice.

I stood up and Cole followed me as we walked to the front door. From there you couldn't see into the living room. Cole wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a hug. "I'm sorry that this is all going on." His voice was muffled by my hair.

"Thanks for being here," I whispered back, embracing his hug.

"Of course." He kissed my head and let go of our hug. "I should probably leave before your Uncle kicks me out."

I couldn't help but smile, that was something my Uncle would totally do. Cole and I said our goodbyes and I watched him leave. Joseph and Gracie left shortly after him, eventually leaving Thomas and me alone.

After I had taken a shower for the night, I walked downstairs to the living room. Thomas, who looked exhausted, was still looking at the letter my dad had sent. He probably was trying to process how he'd missed the letter.

His red rimmed eyes met mine from the couch he was sitting on. My heart ached for him. I wondered if he remembered the last conversation he had with my dad that wasn't over the phone. "Follow me," was all he said as he stood up and headed to the laundry room.

When we got to the laundry room he pushed the washer back into place and opened the door the led into the garage. The cold air hit my bare feet and sent an instant chill through my body even though I was wearing sweats.

Thomas put the letter in his back pocket before walking over to a metal rack that lined the wall. Random parts and boxes covered the shelves as he glanced through them.

"Aha," he said. He reached up and grabbed a tiny box and brought it over to me. "Open it."

I looked up at him confused. "What is this?"

Thomas grinned wistfully. "You did your part, now here's mine. Open it."

My brows narrowed, confused even more. So I opened it. Inside the tiny box was parts for the washer, but at the bottom was a piece of paper, no bigger than an index card. I pulled it out and a logo was printed on it with even more random numbers written on the backside of the paper.

The logo was a circle with a chain that wrapped around it running through the middle of the circle. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it at that moment.

"What is this?" I asked Thomas, holding it up to him.

His eyes squinted as he looked at it, resulting in his skin crinkling. "Not sure."

"How did you know this was going to be in there though?" I held up the box with the parts that belonged to the washer.

A smirk covered his face. "That letter was for me, Nina." My face warmed in embarrassment. "Your dad has always known I keep a small box of extra parts for the washer because the one in there is so old. He always made fun of me for refusing to get rid of it. That washer and dryer have been there since I was a teenager."

Wow, that was a long time.

"Now, doesn't that part of the letter make sense?" he asked me, looking amused as he crossed his arms over his chest.

It's about time you replaced a few parts.

He wrote that because he knew my uncle was the only one who would get that. But one thing lingered in my mind. The phone number he wrote down.

"What about this phone number?" I asked, pulling out my phone to show him the picture of the number my dad had written down on the instructions page we found in the washer. "This was in the washer. Do you know who this number belongs to?"

Thomas took my phone and looked at it. "No I don't. It doesn't match the maintenance number either."

He gave me my phone back and I looked at the two phone numbers listed under the tiny box titled 'Need Help?' Neither of them matched the number my dad had written down.

"I need to call it then!"

Thomas chuckled. "Tomorrow. It's already almost midnight. Go get some sleep."

Except I couldn't sleep. After I'd made sure my uncle was in his room and wasn't going to come check up on me, I pulled out my laptop as I sat on my bed. I typed in the number on my phone to see if anything would pull up from it.

Nothing.

"What am I supposed to do with a phone number, logo, and some more random numbers, dad?" I asked myself as I looked at my screen.

I typed in logo with chain wrapped around circle but nothing but pictures of necklaces popped up.

Frustrated, I put my things up and plopped my head onto my pillow. I had found things that might lead me to something my dad wanted Thomas to find, yet it seemed like an impossible task with a bunch of random numbers.

What could they possibly mean?

A/N: Haven't edited this chapter, so please excuse any mistakes you see. As always, hope you enjoyed. :) Any ideas on what all those random numbers mean?