When I was sixteen, Dad suddenly said to me with a smile, “Our family has a big secret.
I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
He said it again when I was eighteen.
Every few years, for no apparent reason, he would bring it up again.
But however much I pressed him, he refused to tell me what the secret was.
When I turned twenty-six, he said it once more.
This time he was especially excited.
Tomorrow, he said, he could finally tell me.
I was excited too.
I’d always suspected the secret might be that my parents were actually rich.
But the next day, Dad was killed.
His body was hanging from the ceiling fan in the living room.
There was a note in his mouth.
It read: [Sweetheart, run!]