“No," she said. “We never had much stuff.”
He opened the small door a crack, then nudged it open all the way. He shined his flashlight with one hand, aimed his gun with the other. On the opposite side of the small space was a brown wall with a sizable hole punched through. On the other side of the hole was another storage space that mimicked hers, including the square outline of light around a small door.
“State code requires builders to put a firewall between all condos and apartments. Sometimes it’s called a one-hour wall. If there were a fire in your neighbor’s house, this wall would keep it from spreading to your home for at least an hour.” He pointed to the hole. “Someone has knocked a pretty big hole through this firewall; big enough to crawl through. So, whoever lives next door could get inside your home—”
“Without me even knowing,” she finished his sentence. “Without even setting off the alarm.” Her chest clenched tight and her hands tingled.
Detective Boone closed the door. “You’ve had one break-in that you know about. There were numerous occasions when you thought you heard footsteps when you were here alone.”
Her throat was painfully dry. “Several times a week.”
“I think you've had more break-ins than you've known about and I think your neighbor is our prime suspect. You need to move your valuables and important papers out of your home.”
Her entire body shook from the inside out as if she were deeply cold. David's killer lived next door and had been in the condo while she was there. “I don’t have anything expensive. My engagement ring is the only diamond I own, and that’s still in my top drawer. David said he kept all of our papers in the safety deposit box at the bank. I haven’t looked there since he passed. I just—I just haven’t done it.” She’d run out of excuses as to why she still hadn’t taken care of certain things. She just hadn’t wanted to undo anything David had done—the stars, the chimes, even the safety deposit box. As if keeping those intact would keep him close to her somehow.
Detective Boone put his hand on her shoulder and patted it twice. “After my first wife left, it took me a good two years before I got it together again. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but one day you’ll find your fresh start. Just trust your instincts.”
She stuffed her hands into the front pockets of her baggy sweatshirt and nodded in agreement. She had always trusted her instincts, until David came into her life.
The detective pushed David’s desk across the room until it was flush against the small door. “This won’t keep him out altogether. You need to get someone in here today to rebuild that firewall. If this were my home I’d have the guy use concrete or brick to do the repair.”
“My sister-in-law is in real estate. I’ll ask her for a referral.” She ran her hand through her hair and noticed her hand shaking. She didn't know if it was fear or rage.
“Alright, I’m going to write up my report. We should all be out of here in the next thirty minutes or so.”
“Detective Boone?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Would you wait here while I throw a few things in a bag? I’m going to leave when you leave.”
“I think that’s wise.”
* * *
If it hadn’t been clear to her before, it was all too apparent to her now. She had to move. David was gone, the life they had was long over. The family life she thought they were going to share within these walls was never going to happen. She pulled on a black t-shirt, lifted her suitcase from the closet shelf, and opened it on the bed.
The eyes of her husband's killer flashed in her mind. The meanness of them had left a mark, like an emotional tattoo. Diamonds, he had said. That had to be a mistake. David didn't have any diamonds. She grabbed a random assortment of clothes from her closet and dresser drawers until her arms were full, then she tossed them into the suitcase. She had no idea what, exactly, she was packing. She didn’t care, whatever she ended up with she’d make it work. She just wanted out.
She opened a small drawer in her bedside table and took out the gun her father had bought for her years ago. She would have to start carrying this now.
She went into the bathroom, took her make-up travel case from beneath the sink and began filling it. She heard Detective Boone on his phone in the hallway telling someone at the police station what he had found. The more detail he relayed as to what he had seen in her condo, the angrier she became.
The guy next door was likely the same one who was responsible for the earlier break-in, the same guy who broke into the warehouse and the same person who killed her husband.
She yanked the shallow make-up drawer from beneath the counter and emptied the contents into the unzipped case. She noticed the small envelope taped to the underside of the drawer.
David had asked her to keep the safety deposit box key somewhere safe, someplace where no one else would find it. “Even if someone broke in,” he had said. Then he held her hands. “If something happens to me, you remember to go there and get all of our papers and things.”
At the time she told him to stop being morbid and paranoid. A chill shimmied through her body. Now she realized. He must have known someone would come looking.
Without I.D. she didn’t think anyone could get to their safety deposit box, even if they had the key. But there were fake I.D.s. Good ones. People's identities were stolen all the time. Apparently, David knew that and didn’t want to take any chances.
She ripped the envelope from the underside of the drawer and opened its fastener. The shiny silver key was still inside. She closed the envelope again and pushed it into the very bottom of her front jeans pocket. She would go by the bank as soon as they opened to see what David had left there. The idea that she might find a pouch full of diamonds left her feeling sick.
Once outside, Walt ripped off a page from his pad and handed it to her. “That’s your case number at the top of the form. They’d like for you to come by the station tomorrow so they can ask you some additional questions. One of the other detectives may want to question you again.”
She thanked him and pulled the house keys from her purse and locked the front door. The star key chain that David had bought for her swung from the lock. “Not that this will do any good if Elias wants to get in.”
Walt stopped short. “Who's Elias?”
She quickly told him how David had mentioned that name to her on the night he was killed. She also told him how she called the intruder Elias and how he responded. “He didn't admit it, but I think that's his name.”
“He's a client of your husband’s business?"
“David had said it was someone who worked with one of his clients. I told the police all of this right after David was killed. I checked the warehouse client records and couldn't find that name.”
“I’d like to look into that a little further if you don't mind. I have your cell phone listed as your contact number. Is that the best number for you?”
“Yes.” She opened the trunk to her car and put her suitcase and carryon inside.
She looked across the parking lot and froze.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“That blue car across the courtyard. I think that’s him. The guy from next door.”
“Wait here.”
Detective Boone put his hand on his gun and started across the parking lot. Before he reached the halfway mark, the blue Ford started its engine.
“Stop!” he yelled. “Police!”
But the car didn’t stop, and its tires squealed when it tore out of the parking lot.
4
Barbara sipped on the double shot of Bailey’s, tugged the soft plaid blanket over one shoulder and sank lower into her father’s worn leather recliner. Her childhood home looked just as it did when she and her brother lived there as children, and when their mother was still alive. Barbara was diligent about maintaining all of her mother’s homemaking touches—green ferns hanging on the front porch, fresh flowers on the breakfast tabl
e and her father's favorite cornbread on Sundays.
“I’m sure you don’t have any idea what diamonds he’s talking about,” her father said for the third time since she had told him her story.
“No, I don’t,” she said and studied him. His thick gray hair was combed straight back, proof that he had taken a hot bath tonight. She had called him before he turned in and he’d told her that he had taken Miller, his beloved German shepherd, on his evening walk, as was a part of his continued recovery therapy.
When her mother died she began checking in on him daily. Then he had his first heart attack, and she took care of getting his prescriptions filled. When he had his second heart attack, she continued all of those things and began keeping an eye on his nutrition to make sure he ate well. David used to joke that he played second fiddle to his father-in-law.
Her father’s dark blue eyes narrowed, and she knew he was working his way through the problem. A former sergeant in the army and a retired police officer, he was accustomed to solving mysteries. When she told him about the hole in the firewall, he told her what she already knew, that she couldn’t go back there. Not even after the firewall was fixed. Though the sun wasn't up yet, he texted his daughter-in-law, Kris, and told her to list the property immediately.
“When the guy first said that he was looking for diamonds, I thought— this is some kind of mistaken identity. He’s got the wrong house and the wrong person and I’m going to get shot because of something somebody else did. But then he talked about how, if I didn’t turn them over, that I was going to die like my husband did. So, he knew David. And he definitely recognized the name Elias.”
“Diamonds,” her father said. “Just doesn’t sound like David. He was a straight arrow, that one. Treated you well.”
“Like a queen.” She thought about how David had insulated her, taken care of everything for her, hardly let her lift a finger. She’d grown comfortable with that, so much so that she had stopped making some of her own choices.
The Irish whiskey warmed her from the inside out, weighted her eyelids such that they closed. Different images flashed in a chaotic order—David quizzing her on the names of different types of stars, gluing stars to the ceiling in the nursery, kissing her belly, Detective Walter Boone opening the small storage door and showing her the hole in the firewall, her neighbor driving out of the parking lot with his tires squealing. “Elias,” she heard David say at the outdoor restaurant. The man in the trucker's hat and the aviator sunglasses driving down the street in the brown sedan, his arm lifting toward them with the gun in his hand. The man in the ski mask who held a gun at her head.
She jerked upright and her glass hit the carpet with a thud.
“You okay?” her father asked.
"Yeah. Too much on my mind, can't relax. Do you think we could have missed the name Elias somewhere in David’s records?”
“I'll go back to the warehouse today and search again. You stay here with Miller.” The dog sat upright and her dad patted his head. “I’ve taught you how to protect yourself. You need to start carrying that gun I bought for you.”
“It’s in my purse,” she said. “I need to go by the bank today.” She felt the outline of the silver safety deposit box key in her pocket. “The detective suggested I get out of town for a while. Give them a chance to find this guy without my being in harm's way.”
She watched her father’s jaw muscle work and she knew he didn’t like the idea.
“For how long?” he asked.
“I don't know. He said it might be safer if I were out of sight. I'm thinking it might be safer for you, too, if I weren't around. I don't want this guy figuring out where you or Kris live. What do you think?”
He drew in a deep breath. “Well, I hate the idea of this guy running you out of town. Where would you go?”
“I don’t know.” She felt his heart ache. They had always been close, but since her mother’s death their relationship had become even closer. “Maybe it's not a good idea.”
“I don’t guess I could tuck you away in the back yard…set up a tent like when you were a little girl? When you pretended to travel someplace exotic?”
Her lips curved into a smile at the memory—seeing her mother standing on the other side of the kitchen window, watching her brother run around the tent with his Nerf guns, listening to her father yell from the side yard that Stephen needed to leave her alone. She thought of her own condo and all the happy times she and David had once shared there, felt the smile slide from her face.
Her father leaned back and narrowed his eyes as if he read her mind. “You'll find a new home.” That hadn't been the first time he’d given her that suggestion. He glanced around the room. “Might be good for you to have a fresh start, anyway. Sometimes memories don’t do you any favors. They're strong as steel and they can make you their prisoner.”
She followed her father's line of sight, landing finally on the wall of family photos that highlighted her and her brother Stephen’s early school years, her wedding, Stephen’s wedding, and an 8x10 of her mother in the middle of it all. It was at that moment she realized most of her life was actually in the past. For the last year and a half, she hadn't been living. She had only been reliving.
5
Cara, the banker, was startlingly young. Her jet black hair was slicked high in a twist, and large flat freckles coated her nose and cheeks. The combination made her look as if she were playing dress-up in her mother's business suit. Barb wanted to give her some advice. She wanted to tell her not to be so naive, that ideals were a bad investment, that people would disappoint her in ways she couldn't even imagine yet.
The banker compared Barbara’s driver’s license to something on her computer screen. “Oh. Here you are. You should have told me you shared this box with your husband.” She smiled a pageant-worthy smile and emphasized the word husband, as if Barb’s marital status entitled her to higher rank within the bank’s system.
“He’s deceased.” Barbara produced the death certificate from her purse.
The banker winced like she’d bit her tongue. “I’ll make a note on your account.”
“I’d like to take his name off of our account and our checks, too, please.”
Cara said she would and led Barbara to a small room lined with four walls of silver safety deposit boxes. A room full of secrets.
“This one is yours. Here.” Cara pointed to the medium-sized box, her trendy taupe-colored nails shiny under the canned lighting. Barbara imagined her flipping through endless magazines to find just the right color. As if the right image could create the perfect life. She put her key with the orange fob into the lock.
Barb stared, waiting.
“Now you just put your key in that chamber right there.” Cara’s tone was sweet and coaxing.
“Oh.” Barb inserted her key. She’d never had a safety deposit box, never saw the reason for it. David was the one who insisted they have one and he took care of maintaining it.
Cara pulled the long box from its home and placed it on the table that had privacy panels on three sides. “Take as long as you need to. I’m just at my desk if you need help with anything.”
Barbara watched after her until she was gone. She lowered herself onto the cold plastic chair and placed her hands on the metal box. David had been the last person to put anything inside. She was visiting with a ghost.
There couldn't be diamonds inside. Wouldn't be, she assured herself. David never stole anything, ever. He paid their taxes in full and on time, tipped generously, gave to charity, lived well beneath his means. He was as honest and down-to-earth as they came. He even worked as a park ranger while he was in college in New York. He loved helping people. That wasn’t someone who stole diamonds.
The lid lifted without a noise.
Inside were the standard items that she had expected to see: the deed to their condo, his passport and hers, their wills, birth certificates, and their marriage certificate. There was two thousand dollars in cash, beca
use David had been convinced that there would be a banking crisis at some point, and he wanted immediate access to cash. She put the documents and the cash into the center section of her purse and zipped it shut. She stared into the empty box. No diamonds.
Maybe David’s death was as the police had said, tragic and random. The guy who had broken in could have gotten the wrong house. The wrong person. David hadn’t stolen any diamonds. But maybe someone who worked for David did. She would tell Detective Boone to look into the employees again.
She stepped out of the small room. “I’m finished,” she said. “I left the box on the table.”
Cara’s expression was wary. Barb decided she had been too standoffish. Maybe even rude. She would tell her how pretty her nails were and ask her where she had them done.
“Ms. Silver?”
“Yes?”
“I found another account under your husband’s name. A safety deposit box. It’s in his name only.” Cara pointed at her computer screen.
Barbara’s throat dried and she forced a swallow. “Oh. Right. I forgot about that one.” David had never mentioned another safety deposit box.
“If you have his will that shows you inherit his property, I can give you the key.”
“Thank you for reminding me. Gosh, I almost walked right out of here without it.” She unzipped her purse, removed the will and hoped Cara didn’t see her hand shaking.
“I have our marriage certificate, too, if you need it. What’s his is mine.” Including the trouble, she thought.
The banker gave her a cursory smile, one that said she knew Barb’s husband had kept the safety deposit box a secret. “Okay, looks like everything is in order. It’s box 397, a bigger one this time.”
Chasing Secrets Page 3
