Chapter 3 - THE SECRET MY MOTHER TOOK TO HER GRAVE
I had spent six years believing I knew everything important about my mother.
By breakfast, I realized I might not have known her at all.
“My mother was a nurse,” I said.
Evelyn nodded.
“Massachusetts General. Emergency department.”
That part was true.
“She treated Dominic?”
Dominic answered before Evelyn could.
“When I was seventeen, I was stabbed.”
He said it with the same emotion someone might use to mention missing a train.
“My father had enemies. I was brought into the hospital under a false name.”
I stared at him.
“You were stabbed at seventeen?”
“Occupational hazard.”
“You were seventeen. You didn't have an occupation.”
Something almost like amusement moved through his eyes.
Evelyn continued.
“Sarah realized people were searching for him. She moved Dominic to another floor before they arrived.”
Dominic's expression hardened.
“Three men came into the emergency department pretending to be family.”
My skin turned cold.
“My mother never told me.”
“She was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
Neither answered.
That was worse.
One of Dominic's men entered the apartment carrying my grocery bags from the hallway.
“Ms. Bennett, these were left downstairs.”
The bags I'd dropped during the robbery.
Someone had gathered them and placed them with the building superintendent.
I thanked him and started putting things away.
Bread.
Coffee.
Milk.
Then something metal struck the kitchen counter.
A small brass key.
I frowned.
“That isn't mine.”
Evelyn gasped.
Dominic crossed the room immediately.
The key had been wrapped inside a paper grocery receipt.
Stamped into the metal were four characters.
B-317.
Dominic looked at his mother.
“Do you recognize it?”
Her face went blank again.
“No.”
He turned toward me.
“You said she gave you nothing.”
“She didn't.”
Then I remembered something.
While we were sitting outside the bookstore, Evelyn had leaned against my grocery bag while the officer questioned the teenagers' descriptions.
Her hand had disappeared inside it for several seconds.
At the time, I thought she was simply unsteady.
Maybe she hadn't been.
Dominic reached for the key.
Evelyn suddenly grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
Everyone froze.
She looked at me.
“Claire keeps it.”
“Mother—”
“I trusted her before I could remember my own name.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“You may have been confused.”
Evelyn smiled.
“I was confused about my address, darling. Not about character.”
Dominic reluctantly stepped back.
I picked up the key.
On the other side was a tiny engraved symbol.
A crown above the number 317.
Dominic recognized it.
His face became frighteningly calm.
“What is it?” I asked.
He looked toward the window.
“A private vault company on Federal Street.”
Evelyn whispered, “Then that's why I came.”
Dominic turned back.
But his mother was staring at him with horror.
“Whatever is inside that box…”
May you like
Her voice broke.
“…your father died trying to keep it from your uncle.”
