Chapter 6
Daniel picked it up with a handkerchief.
“Safe-deposit key?”
“Looks like one.”
Stamped into the metal was a number.
317.
Daniel looked at me.
“Does that mean anything?”
“No.”
I took a photo.
Then something near the back of the compartment caught the light.
A narrow strip of blue thread.
I picked it up.
The exact same shade used to repair Lily’s rabbit.
And suddenly I remembered where I had seen that stitching.
Not on fabric.
On an old photograph.
My father kept almost no family photographs in his office. But one had remained on the shelf behind his desk until the day he died.
Five men standing outside a warehouse.
My father was one.
Victor Kane was another.
And beside them stood an older man wearing a work jacket with a torn cuff crudely repaired in bright blue thread.
The photograph had a handwritten date.
October 1989.
I had been two years old.
I went directly to my father’s old study.
No one used the room now.
I had changed nearly every part of the estate after his death, but that room I had left untouched.
Perhaps because preserving it was easier than deciding whether to destroy it.
Daniel followed me.
“You know what the thread means?”
“Maybe.”
I switched on the desk lamp.
The photograph was still there.
Five men.
Lorenzo Moretti.
Victor Kane, younger by decades.
Two men I didn’t recognize.
And the fifth—
I lifted the frame.
On the back, in my father’s handwriting, were five names.
Lorenzo. Victor. Samuel Bennett. Arthur Vale. Frank Donnelly.
Samuel Bennett.
Thomas’s grandfather.
Daniel exhaled.
“Well.”
I removed the photograph.
Something fell from behind it.
A folded piece of yellowed paper.
I stared at it.
“Was that always there?”
“I’ve never taken this photograph apart.”
I unfolded the paper.
There were only four handwritten lines.
My father’s handwriting.
I knew it instantly.
Sam—
If Kane ever comes asking about Dock 4, tell him the agreement ended with Arthur. I moved the original ledger. Your family’s copy remains where we discussed.
L.
Daniel read it twice.
“Dock 4.”
“One of the Bennett Street warehouses.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
My company owned three buildings there.
Warehouse 12.
Warehouse 14.
And the old riverside structure everyone still called Dock 4.
“What ledger?” Daniel asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Claire’s husband may have.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at the key again.
“Or maybe Thomas found where his grandfather hid the family copy.”
By three in the morning, Claire had fallen asleep.
Michael insisted she would recover with rest, fluids, and several days away from work.
I informed Mrs. Alvarez that Claire was on paid leave.
Mrs. Alvarez informed me, with remarkable confidence for a woman technically employed by me, that Claire would not be returning to the employee apartment that night.
“Where exactly do you propose she sleep?” I asked.
“The Blue Room.”
“That’s in the family wing.”
“Yes.”
“It hasn’t been used in years.”
“Then it needs using.”
May you like
I stared at her.
Mrs. Alvarez raised one eyebrow.
