Chapter 3 - The Key Claire Left
Noah had turned thirteen four days earlier.
He led me to Claire's old apartment across town. I had kept paying the rent because I couldn't bring myself to empty it. Vanessa had called that sentimental and stupid.
Now I wondered what else she had wanted me to stop looking at.
Noah knelt beside the bedroom radiator and slid the brass key into a narrow lock hidden behind the baseboard.
A panel popped loose.
Inside was a cheap burner phone and an envelope with Noah's name.
His hands shook as he opened it.
The note was short.
Noah, if you're reading this, something went wrong. Do not trust messages that come from me after June 14. Trust Uncle Daniel only if he is willing to admit when he was wrong.
I read that last line twice.
Noah didn't look at me.
"She scheduled an email to me," he said. "It came on my birthday. It had one sentence: Use the key."
I turned on the burner phone.
No contacts. No photos. One saved draft.
I opened it.
A list of dates appeared, followed by company invoice numbers and the initials V.C., M.H., and E.P.
Vanessa Carter. Marcus Hale.
E.P. took me longer.
Then I felt sick.
Elliot Price, chief financial officer of Carter Meridian, the company my father built and Claire and I inherited.
At the bottom of the draft was a location: STORAGE 218, WESTBROOK SELF STORAGE.
Noah sat on Claire's bed. "Did Mom steal money from the company?"
"That's what the transfers made it look like."
"Did you believe it?"
I wanted to lie.
"For a while."
His eyes filled, but he refused to cry.
"She knew you would."
That one landed hard.
I had spent thirteen months being angry at Claire for disappearing, for leaving her son, for pulling money out of corporate accounts, for sending cold emails that sounded like someone wearing her skin.
Maybe that was exactly what someone wanted.
I checked the burner phone's sent folder.
Empty.
Then the screen lit up by itself.
INCOMING MESSAGE.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
It was me and Noah standing in Claire's bedroom.
Taken through the window less than ten seconds earlier.
May you like
Under it were four words.
LEAVE THE STORAGE UNIT ALONE.
