Chapter 2
I stared at Margaret’s phone while police lights flashed through the windows.
Someone else was involved.
Someone who believed my apartment contained a secret dangerous enough to send people to prison.
The phone required a password.
I tried Derek’s birthday.
Wrong.
I tried Margaret’s birthday.
Wrong again.
Then I remembered the number Derek used for everything.
The day his father supposedly died.
The phone unlocked.
Dozens of messages filled the screen.
Most were between Margaret and a contact saved only as R.
R: The deed must be transferred before Friday.
Margaret: Claire refuses.
R: Then pressure her.
Margaret: Derek knows what to do.
R: No police. No public scenes.
That last message had been sent two hours before Derek attacked me.
I scrolled farther.
There were photographs of my apartment building.
Old blueprints.
A picture of my grandmother standing beside a man I didn’t recognize.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written: Evelyn and Robert, 1998.
My grandmother’s name was Evelyn.
Robert had to be R.
A knock came from the front door.
I froze.
The police had already left.
“Claire?”
It was my older brother, Ethan.
I opened the door, and his expression changed when he saw the bandage around my head.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“He’s in custody.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
I pulled him inside and showed him the phone.
His anger became confusion.
“Why would they go to prison over an apartment?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan studied the photograph.
“I’ve seen this man before.”
“Where?”
“At Grandma’s funeral. He stood across the street and watched us.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Grandma had died suddenly six months before my wedding.
The doctors said it was a heart attack.
Derek appeared in my life three weeks after her death.
At the time, I thought it was fate.
Now it felt like a plan.
Ethan examined the blueprints.
“There’s a room missing.”
“What?”
He pointed toward the wall behind my bedroom closet.
“The outside measurements are longer than the inside layout. There’s a hidden space.”
We went to the bedroom and emptied the closet.
Behind the hanging clothes was a wooden panel I had always assumed was part of the wall.
Ethan tapped it.
Hollow.
We found a small latch beneath the baseboard.
The panel opened with a groan.
Behind it was a narrow room covered in dust.
A metal box sat in the center.
Before I could touch it, Margaret’s phone rang.
R was calling.
Ethan motioned for silence.
I answered but said nothing.
A man spoke.
“Margaret, tell me you have it.”
I lowered my voice.
“The police took Derek.”
Silence.
Then the man said, “Claire?”
My stomach tightened.
He knew immediately.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“You opened the wall, didn’t you?”
Ethan grabbed my arm.
The man continued in a calm voice.
“Whatever you find in that box destroyed your grandmother. It will destroy you too.”
The call ended.
Someone struck the front door.
Once.
Twice.
Then the lock began to turn.
Derek still had a key.
But he was in jail.
Ethan picked up a heavy lamp.
I grabbed the metal box and held it against my chest.
The door opened.
A tall man in a dark coat stepped inside.
I recognized him from the photograph.
Robert.
He looked at the blood on my face, then at the box.
“Give that to me,” he said.
Ethan raised the lamp.
“Take another step and see what happens.”
Robert didn’t even look at him.
“Claire, your grandmother stole that box from me twenty-eight years ago.”
“Then why didn’t you take it while she was alive?”
His expression hardened.
“Because she promised to expose what was inside if I ever came near you.”
My breath caught.
“She was protecting me?”
“No,” he said. “She was protecting herself.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Robert backed toward the door.
“You have until Friday. Give me the box, and I’ll disappear.”
“And if I don’t?”
May you like
He looked straight into my eyes.
“Then you’ll learn why Derek married you.”
