Chapter 2 - THE BLUE BOX
The cabinet was locked.
Ethan remembered the key.
Claire had worn a tiny silver key on a chain around her neck for years.
After her death, the necklace had disappeared.
At the time, Ethan assumed the hospital had misplaced it.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Marcus examined the cabinet.
“I can open it without damaging the contents.”
“Do it.”
Celeste remained near the doorway.
Richard had been escorted to the library downstairs.
Sophie sat on the bed beside Ethan.
She refused to let him leave her sight.
Marcus worked carefully with a small tool kit.
Thirty seconds later, the cabinet clicked.
Inside was a narrow blue wooden box.
Ethan recognized it instantly.
Claire's father had made it for her when she was a teenager.
There was another lock.
Sophie reached beneath the collar of her dress.
“I have the key.”
Ethan stared at her.
A thin string hung around Sophie's neck.
At the end was Claire's silver key.
“Mommy gave it to me before the hospital.”
Ethan could barely breathe.
“You remembered that?”
Sophie nodded.
“She told me not to tell anybody until I was scared.”
Ethan knelt in front of her.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Celeste said you would be sad if I talked about Mommy too much.”
Ethan closed his eyes for one second.
One sentence.
That was all it took for months of overlooked moments to rearrange themselves inside his head.
Celeste changing Sophie's bedroom.
Celeste removing Claire's pictures.
Celeste insisting Sophie needed “distance from the past.”
Celeste suggesting a boarding school overseas would someday be good for her.
He had mistaken control for concern.
Sophie placed the key in his palm.
Ethan unlocked the blue box.
Inside were three envelopes, a small flash drive, a bank deposit receipt, and a sealed legal document.
The first envelope read:
FOR ETHAN.
The second:
FOR SOPHIE WHEN SHE IS OLD ENOUGH.
The third:
IF CELESTE VALE IS STILL IN OUR LIVES.
Ethan's blood turned cold.
Celeste had known Claire.
Of course she had.
Celeste had been Claire's charity foundation consultant for almost three years.
But after Claire died, Celeste told Ethan they had barely been friends.
Ethan took the third envelope.
Behind him, Celeste whispered.
“Claire wasn't well when she wrote those.”
Ethan turned.
“How do you know what's inside?”
Celeste froze.
Marcus looked at her.
Sophie looked at her.
Even the silence seemed to accuse her.
Celeste recovered quickly.
“I'm guessing.”
Ethan opened the envelope.
There were only six lines.
“Ethan, if you are reading this, I was right to be afraid.”
“Celeste has been asking questions about Sophie's trust.”
“She knows more about your overseas accounts than she should.”
“I believe Richard helped her access private company records.”
“Do not confront them until you see the files.”
“And Ethan, my illness may not have begun the way the doctors believed.”
Ethan stopped reading.
The room went completely still.
Celeste took one step backward.
Marcus immediately noticed.
“So did I.”
He moved into the doorway.
Ethan looked down at the flash drive.
For two years, he had accepted that Claire's death was a tragedy.
May you like
Now, sitting beside his terrified daughter, he faced a possibility far worse.
Claire may have been trying to leave him evidence before she died.
