Chapter 13
Grace stopped the vacuum cleaner. The sudden silence in the hallway made Anthony freeze, his hand hovering over a stack of tax returns.
“Is someone out there?” Anthony whispered.
“Just the maid,” Veronica said, her voice flat. “Ignore her. She doesn’t know a trust agreement from a grocery list. Keep looking.”
Grace stood perfectly still in the hall, her hands smoothing the front of her blue apron over and over. Through the two-inch crack in the door, she saw Anthony open the small middle drawer.
Inside that drawer, resting on top of a stack of blank stationery, was a small, rectangular silver voice recorder. It was the digital unit I used to dictate memo notes for the logistics firm when I worked late at night.
Anthony brushed the recorder aside, his gold wristwatch gleaming under the desk lamp as he searched beneath the paper. He did not touch the device.
“It is not here, Veronica,” Anthony said, slamming the drawer shut. “We need to check the wall safe behind the bookcase.”
“He changed the combination last month,” Veronica said. “If the documents are not in this desk, we have a major problem.”
Grace stepped back into the shadows of the hallway as Veronica turned toward the door. She quickly restarted the vacuum cleaner, its loud hum filling the corridor just as Veronica flung the study door wide open.
Veronica glared at Grace, then walked past her without a word, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor toward the elevator.
The sun had fully set by the time the private room at St. Jude’s grew dark. The only light came from the green digital display of the vitals monitor near my head.
May you like
The door opened with a soft click, much quieter than before.
Grace walked in, carrying a gray plastic trash bin. She did not turn on the overhead lights. She moved with a slow, deliberate quietness, her rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the tile.
