Chapter 6 - The Trashed Apartment and the Phone Call
I left the DA’s office at dusk. The city sky was bruised purple, smelling of damp asphalt and exhaust. I pulled out my cell phone. I had seventeen missed calls from Richard. Nine from Susan. Three from my brother Tyler. And a text from my dad. No. From Richard. “Where is the passbook?” Then another: “Chloe, you have no idea what you’re getting into.” And the last one: “Your grandmother lied to you. Rose was no saint.”
I stared at that sentence. Rose. My mother had a name. And he typed it like a threat. I didn’t answer. I shoved the phone in my pocket and walked to my apartment.
The door was slightly ajar. I stopped dead in my tracks. I had locked it. The hallway smelled of reheated takeout and cheap bleach. The neighbor in 2B had their TV blaring. No one seemed to have heard a thing. I pushed the door open with the tip of my shoe.
My apartment was completely trashed. The mattress was flipped. Blankets scattered on the floor. The tin where I kept my tip money was open. My photos were thrown about. The shoebox where I kept my grandmother’s keepsakes was empty. But they didn’t take cash. They were looking for papers. They were looking for the passbook.
A chill ran down my spine. Then I saw something on the kitchen table. A photograph. It wasn’t mine. It was the same woman from the image at the bank. Rosemary. My mother. But this photo was different. She was older. Thinner. She had a dark purple bruise on her cheekbone. And she was holding a baby. Me.
On the back of the photo was a phrase written in black Sharpie: “If you want to know who sold you, ask about account 307.”
My hand began to shake. Account 307. The passbook had a red seal. The marked account. The bank. The case file. At that exact moment, my phone rang. Unknown Caller. I thought of Agent Jenkins. I thought about ignoring it. I answered anyway. “Chloe?”
The voice was a woman’s. Raspy. Distant. As if it were coming from a place with high winds. I didn’t know it, and yet at the same time, something deep inside my chest buckled. “Who is this?” There was a silence. Then a suppressed sob. “I don’t know if I have the right to tell you this.” My heart lodged in my throat. “Who is it?” The woman breathed with difficulty. “It’s Rose.”
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I leaned heavily against the drywall. The trashed apartment began to spin. “My mother is dead.” “That’s what Richard told you.” My knees gave way. I sank down onto my scattered blankets. “No.” “Chloe, listen to me. I don’t have much time. If you went to the bank, he already knows the alert was triggered.” “Where are you?” “That doesn’t matter right now.” “Of course it matters!”
The woman cried. “It matters that you don’t go to account 307 alone. It matters that you don’t trust Agent Jenkins.” I felt a rush of ice in my veins. “What?” “She was a child when it happened, but her father wasn’t. Her father signed the first fake police file.”
