Chapter 4
Box 27 was not in the lodge.
It was in Denver.
I knew because the number belonged to a private storage room Ellen rented more than two decades earlier. I had forgotten it existed.
Mark had not.
“You opened it?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mom told me not to.”
I almost laughed.
“You were eleven.”
“She made me promise.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Mark looked away.
“She said if anything happened to her, I was supposed to keep the key until I knew who I could trust.”
That hurt.
Ellen died twelve years ago.
My own son had carried her warning into adulthood and never decided I was someone he could trust with it.
“Why didn’t you bring it to me after she died?”
Mark’s answer came quietly.
“Because she told me not to trust you first.”
Silence.
Even Claudia looked surprised.
I stared at him.
“My wife told our son not to trust me?”
Mark rubbed his face.
“Not exactly.”
“Then exactly.”
“She said if you were still listening to Uncle Thomas, don’t give you the key.”
Thomas Bellacorte.
My younger brother.
Dead seven years.
The man who stood beside me during Ellen’s final illness.
The man who handled family logistics when grief made me useless.
My closest adviser.
“What did Thomas have to do with Ellen?”
Mark shook his head.
“I never knew.”
“Sarah did.”
He looked up.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Sarah found the plane.
Found the key.
Found whatever Ellen had been protecting from Thomas.
And then Sarah died.
I looked at Claudia.
She went pale.
“Did you know Sarah was investigating Thomas?”
“No.”
“You knew about the key.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mark answered for her.
“I told her.”
I stared at my son.
He had trusted Claudia with the secret he had refused to trust me with.
“Why?”
Mark’s face twisted.
“Because after Sarah died, I didn’t know what else to do.”
That part sounded real.
Grief makes people stupid.
I knew.
I had spent twelve years proving it.
Then Claudia whispered:
“You don’t understand. Sarah wasn’t supposed to find Box 27 either.”
I turned toward her.
“Supposed to?”
She closed her eyes.
Another mistake.
May you like
Another truth slipping out.
Someone had been controlling who reached Ellen’s secret long after Ellen and Thomas were both dead.
