Chapter 3 - Claire’s Locked Box
After Vanessa went downstairs, I called my sister, Rebecca.
I didn’t give her every detail.
I said only:
“Come get the kids. Don’t ask questions until you’re here.”
She arrived twenty minutes later.
One look at Ethan’s face changed her expression.
“Oh my God.”
Vanessa stepped forward immediately.
“He fell.”
Rebecca looked at me.
I shook my head.
That was enough.
Vanessa protested when I packed the children’s overnight bags.
“You’re removing them from their home because we had one difficult afternoon?”
“I’m removing them from you.”
Her mouth tightened.
Rebecca carried Sophie outside.
I carried Ethan.
Before we reached the door, he pointed upstairs.
“Mommy box.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Vanessa Mommy box.”
Claire’s belongings were stored in a locked cedar chest in my bedroom closet.
I hadn’t opened it in nearly a year.
Neither child could reach it.
I handed Ethan to Rebecca.
“Take them.”
Then I went upstairs.
The closet door was open.
The cedar chest was still locked.
But scratches surrounded the keyhole.
My pulse climbed.
The spare key was hidden in my desk.
Or it used to be.
I checked.
Gone.
Vanessa appeared behind me.
“What are you doing?”
“Where’s the key?”
“To what?”
I pointed.
Her expression barely changed.
“Daniel, you’re spiraling.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
I knelt and inspected the chest.
One hinge had been loosened.
Someone had tried to access it without opening the lock normally.
Vanessa scoffed.
“Maybe Ethan did it.”
I stared at her.
“My eighteen-month-old son loosened a metal hinge?”
She said nothing.
I called a locksmith.
Vanessa watched him work from the doorway.
When the lid finally opened, most of Claire’s things looked untouched.
Photographs.
Jewelry.
Old letters.
A baby blanket.
Then I saw the empty space in the bottom-right corner.
Something was missing.
A blue document folder.
I remembered it instantly.
Claire had kept estate documents there.
Insurance information.
A trust created for the children.
And one sealed envelope her attorney had delivered shortly before her death.
I had never opened it.
Claire asked me not to unless the attorney contacted me.
Now the folder was gone.
I turned toward Vanessa.
She was already walking away.
“Stop.”
She froze.
“Where is Claire’s blue folder?”
“I have no idea.”
My phone buzzed.
Rebecca.
She had found something inside Ethan’s diaper bag.
A torn corner of blue cardstock.
On it was part of Claire’s handwriting.
May you like
And one word was still visible.
**Sophie.**
