Chapter 9
From the envelope, he slid a small brass key.
No label.
No number.
Nothing extraordinary.
Except my mother had chosen to protect it for me.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“Eighteen years and you never figured it out?”
“I tried.”
“You’re Alexander Vance.”
“That does not make unidentified brass keys confess their secrets.”
Another unwilling smile tugged at my mouth.
Then disappeared.
“The storage box?”
“That was my best guess. But the facility used electronic access systems, even at the time.”
“So this opens something else.”
“I believe so.”
I reached for the key.
Alexander didn’t stop me.
The metal was warm from his hand.
I turned it over.
One side had several nearly invisible scratches.
Three lines.
Then two.
Then one.
“Did you know my father too?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“I knew his name. Daniel Bennett. Your mother rarely spoke about him after his death.”
“He died in a boating accident.”
“So I was told.”
The room seemed to grow colder.
“So you were told?”
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“I should be careful here.”
“Why?”
“Because there are facts, and there are suspicions. You deserve the difference.”
It was the most sensible thing anyone had said to me all day.
“What are the facts?”
“Your father died in May 2001. Your mother resigned from Vanguard four months later. She moved twice in the following year. Then, in 2004, she died.”
I looked down.
Even hearing the dates hurt.
“And the suspicions?”
“Your mother was frightened before she resigned.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re saying that a lot.”
“Because I failed to ask the right questions when I had the chance.”
The regret in his voice was unmistakable.
He looked toward the rain streaking the hospital window.
“I was ambitious. My father had just made me president of one of Vanguard’s divisions. Every day was an argument, a negotiation, an acquisition. Eleanor told me something was wrong, and I assumed it was office politics.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That records had been altered.”
I sat straighter.
“What kind of records?”
“Trust records.”
That word hung between us.
“Whose trust?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mine?”
“I don’t know.”
“Richard’s?”
“I doubt it.”
“Yours?”
Alexander did not answer.
My heart beat faster.
Before I could ask again, someone knocked.
A woman in navy blue entered.
She was around forty, with dark hair pulled into a practical knot and a leather portfolio tucked under one arm.