Chapter 3
Claudia tried to correct herself.
Too late.
She claimed Mark told her about the plane years ago. Said Ellen used to hide sentimental notes inside toys. Said she only meant the thing should have been thrown away with the rest of the old belongings.
I let her talk.
Then I asked why Mark had never mentioned the brass key.
He did not answer.
I asked again.
Mark finally said, “Because Mom told me never to.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“I was eleven.”
That was twenty-one years ago.
Ellen had put a key inside her son’s toy when he was eleven years old and told him never to speak about it.
I looked at the paper.
ASK ABOUT ELLEN.
“That note isn’t your mother’s handwriting.”
Mark shook his head.
“No.”
“Whose?”
He looked toward Claudia.
She snapped, “Stop looking at me.”
Interesting.
Mark looked back at me.
“Noah’s mother.”
Everything inside me went still.
Sarah.
Mark’s first wife.
Noah’s mother.
Dead eighteen months.
The family had been told she died after a sudden illness while traveling.
I had never seen her body.
Mark said the funeral was private because Sarah’s family wanted it that way.
At the time, I respected it.
Now I felt stupid.
“Sarah wrote this?”
Mark nodded.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew enough to hide the airplane.”
His face hardened.
“She started asking questions before she died.”
“What questions?”
Claudia interrupted.
“She became obsessed with Ellen.”
I looked at her.
“She never met Ellen.”
“No. But she found old things. Letters. Pictures. That plane.”
Mark added, “She thought Mom left something behind.”
I stared at him.
“And you didn’t?”
He hesitated.
That was answer enough.
I placed the key on the table again.
“Number twenty-seven.”
Mark’s eyes flicked down.
He knew.
“Where?”
No answer.
Then footsteps sounded in the hallway.
One of my oldest guards entered carrying Noah’s battered little backpack.
“We found this behind the terrace curtains.”
Inside were crayons, a snack, one sock, and a photograph.
Sarah.
Holding Noah as a newborn.
On the back, in the same handwriting as the note:
IF RICHARD GETS THE PLANE, TAKE HIM TO BOX 27.
Mark sat down.
Claudia whispered a curse.
May you like
And I finally understood why my grandson had been punished.
He had completed a message his dead mother had been trying to send me.
