My dad took his life on my 5th birthday. 3 years later, I found his hand-written letter

The Discovery and Initial Investigation

My dad took his life on my fifth birthday. Three years later, I found his handwritten letter. Mom told me it was an old goodbye note. But as I grew older, I started receiving frequent, oddly specific letters that made me question everything.

In these letters, Dad would congratulate me on making it to my middle school graduation. He also congratulated me for getting my driver’s license. On my 17th birthday, the letter mentioned EA. EA was my friend who I’d only met 2 months ago.

I tried telling myself it was some kind of mistake. But deep down, I knew something was up. I marched straight to my dad’s best friend’s house. They’d grown up in the same foster house. And if anyone would know the truth, it would be him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. “What is this?” I interrupted him. I was holding up the letters that had been my family secret up until now.

His face instantly drained of color. He didn’t even read them, but somehow knew what they were. “Your father? He… He knew you better than you think,” he stammered. He practically shoved me out the door.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So, the next day after school, when I saw his car at the grocery store nearby, I waited around the corner. He came out of Aldi. Except he wasn’t carrying any groceries, just an envelope.

That’s when I knew I had to follow him. I called an Uber instantly and told him to follow. 10 minutes later, I found myself at a storage unit on the edge of town. I was crouching behind a rusty container, watching my dad’s best friend work from afar.

He was in that storage unit for so long. By the time he finally came out of it and drove away, I’d fully finished two Natasha Chamberlain podcast episodes. That’s when I snuck in.

The storage unit was still unlocked. This was probably because he was a kind of dumb and hadn’t expected a psycho beach to come snooping around. Inside the unit, boxes lined every wall.

I opened the closest one and nearly dropped it. Hundreds of letters instantly spilled out. These were all addressed to different girls: Natasha, Paige, Chloe. All were written like they were from dead fathers.

Then I spotted one that made my blood freeze. For Sophie, my name, 18th birthday, that was 3 weeks away. My fingers trembled as I opened it. It started off with normal proud father stuff.

Then, “soon we can finally be together again”. Also, “Follow the instructions”. I started freaking out. He was actually planning to lure me somewhere.

Where would he have taken me? And what would he do once we were alone? I was about to sneak out to just get some air until I saw the filing cabinet. Inside were folders filled with girls’ photos.

The photos didn’t have names on them at first. But after reading the letters, I could match the physical appearance as described in the letters to their names. I pulled up Google and searched the names and my blood went cold.

Paige Wright, missing. Amanda Thompson, missing. All vanished right before turning 18. My 18th birthday was in three weeks. I grabbed everything I could carry and sped to Victor’s house.

“You wrote these,” I said, dumping the folders on his Kit Collins table. He didn’t even deny it. “Parents pay me to write them to grieving daughters who need comfort,” he said. “But your mom never gave me a dime”.

His hands shook as he pulled out a ledger. “Look at this,” he said, showing me the payment records. Most parents only pay me for a year, maybe two. But someone’s been paying me monthly for 12 years to write to you.

He showed me the pickup address where he collected his fee. Starfire Grief Center. I recognized it instantly. It was a therapy center I went to twice after Dad died.

“Wait, all these missing girls?” I asked. “Did they go to Starfire, too?”. He nodded, looking sick. They all disappeared right before their 18th birthdays. Except for one, Natasha Collins, aged 19.

There was an address crossed out in red pen on her file. But I could still make out Lang books. After driving over 20 miles, I found her working at a bookstore two towns over.

“Natasha Collins?” I asked. She nodded, scanning the book. “This is going to sound crazy,” I said. “But did you used to get letters from your dead father?”.

Her face went white. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied. She shoved my book back at me. “I think you should leave”. “Wait,” I said, pulling out one of my dad’s letters, hands shaking. “I get them, too”. “Every birthday since I was 8,” I added.

She looked around the empty store, then grabbed my arm. “A week before my 18th birthday, I got one saying dad was waiting for me at the old Starfire building,” she whispered.