Chapter 7 - Escape and the Real Map
I looked at the agent’s card sitting on my bare mattress. Sarah Jenkins. District Attorney’s Office. My hand clenched into a fist. “I don’t understand.” “Your grandmother tried to save you. So did I. But Richard didn’t act alone.”
From the apartment hallway, I heard a noise. Footsteps. Heavy and slow. They stopped right in front of my door. Rose spoke faster on the line: “The money isn’t in the passbook, Chloe. The map is. Account 307 isn’t a bank account. It’s a vault at the cemetery.” My breath hitched. “At the cemetery?” “Where they buried Margaret, she wasn’t alone.”
The door creaked slightly. Someone was standing outside. “Mom,” I whispered, without realizing the word had already escaped my lips. She cried on the other end. “Don’t open the door. And no matter what happens, don’t let Richard get to your sister’s grave first.”
My blood froze completely. “My sister?”
The call cut off. At the same time, someone knocked on my door. Once. Twice. Three times. Richard’s voice sounded on the other side, as sweet as poison. “Chloe, honey… open up. We really need to talk about your mother.”
I looked at the photo of Rose. I looked at Agent Jenkins’ card. I looked at my destroyed life around me. And I finally understood that my grandmother’s passbook wasn’t an inheritance. It was a map. A map to a grave that perhaps didn’t hold the dead… but the reason why my entire existence had been a lie.
But I didn’t stay still either. Richard’s voice on the other side of the wood sounded almost affectionate. “Chloe… don’t make this harder than it has to be.” I stood up slowly, the phone pressed hard against my chest. My knees were shaking so violently I had to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing. The room smelled of dust, of violated privacy, of stranger’s hands touching the only things that were truly mine. “Go away,” I said. My voice came out small. Richard let out a soft, patronizing laugh. “You have no idea what that woman is going to put in your head.”
That woman. My mother. The woman who for twenty-seven years had been buried alive in my memory.
“I’m not talking to you.” “Of course you’re going to talk to me, sweetie.” That word made me sick. I looked around for something, anything, to defend myself with. I only had a broken lamp, a chipped coffee mug, and the dull serrated knife I used for bagels. I grabbed it from the kitchen counter. Richard knocked again. “Open up, or I’ll have to explain to your landlord that you’re not well. That since your grandmother died, you’ve started acting erratic.” That’s when I understood his game. He wasn’t coming to convince me. He was coming to frame me as a “crazy person” before I could become a credible witness.
I backed into the tiny bathroom. The window was small, with loose security bars I’d always promised maintenance I’d put a work order in for. I never did. Blessed negligence. One of the iron rods was completely rusted through. I pulled it with both hands until I felt the skin on my palms tear. The front door creaked loudly. “Chloe,” Richard said, dropping the sweet act and lowering his voice. “Your mother didn’t abandon you because she wanted to. But if you keep asking questions, you’re going to wish she had.”
The rusty rod gave way with a metallic groan. I squeezed myself through the narrow gap. I tore my black dress. I scraped my hip raw. I fell into the back alley of the complex, landing hard on a trash bag that crunched like bone. I stayed perfectly motionless for a few seconds, holding my breath. Above me, my front door burst open. “Chloe!” I didn’t run right away. I forced myself to walk, pressed flat against the brick wall, ducking in the shadows until I reached the main street. When I rounded the corner by the bodega, then I ran. I ran as if my entire past were chasing me down the pavement.
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I didn’t call Agent Jenkins. I didn’t call Rose back. I dialed the only number that didn’t belong to my fear yet: Ms. Caldwell’s. She answered on the second ring. “Chloe?” “Richard is in my apartment.” She didn’t ask questions. “Where are you?” I looked around. A closed laundromat. A taco truck stacking its plastic chairs. A faded mural on a brick wall. “On the corner of Elm and 5th.” “Don’t move from a well-lit area. I’m sending someone.” “No. No one from the DA’s office.” There was a heavy silence on the line. “Why?” I swallowed hard. “Rose called me. She told me not to trust Jenkins.” Ms. Caldwell took a deep, audible breath. “Then trust me enough to hear this: Sarah Jenkins has been investigating her own father for two solid years.” I froze on the sidewalk. “What?” “Retired Police Commander Thomas Jenkins was the one who certified that Rosemary had voluntarily abandoned her daughters. It was a massive cover-up. Sarah knows it. That’s exactly why she requested your case.”
Her daughters. Not “her daughter.” I felt the concrete tilt beneath my feet. “My sister…” “Chloe, I need you to come to the bank.” “Account 307 isn’t at the bank.” Another pause. “Rose told you that too.” It wasn’t a question. “It’s a vault at the cemetery.” Ms. Caldwell spoke much lower now: “Then Richard is already on his way there.”
