Chapter 3 - The Second Key
Hazel was discharged at six that evening.
By seven, three security vehicles surrounded my apartment building.
I hated every second of it.
I hated the men stationed downstairs.
I hated the black SUV across the street.
Mostly, I hated that I was relieved they were there.
Mrs. Kowalski took Hazel into her apartment while Stellan and I searched mine.
The jewelry box was in the back of my bedroom closet beneath tax returns and Hazel’s baby clothes.
My hands shook as I lifted the velvet tray.
Nothing.
Then Stellan tapped the wooden bottom.
“Hollow.”
We pried it loose.
A brass key rested beneath it.
Beside the key was a folded photograph.
Lillian.
She was standing beside Adrian.
Pregnant.
Very pregnant.
I sank onto the bed.
“I never knew.”
Stellan stared at the photograph.
His face went pale.
Neither of us spoke.
On the back, my sister had written:
If anything happens, Jo gets the key. Trust Adrian. Trust Stellan only when he finally learns to trust himself.
Stellan actually flinched.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew her better than I did.”
“No.”
His answer surprised me.
“Adrian knew her. I barely did.”
“Then why mention you?”
“Apparently she believed I would eventually become less of an idiot.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
Stellan looked at me.
And for one strange second, he smiled.
It transformed him.
Then someone shattered the kitchen window.
Stellan moved before I understood the sound.
He pulled me down.
Glass exploded across the floor.
His security team stormed inside.
No gunshot followed.
Instead, a brick lay among the broken glass.
Paper had been tied around it.
Stellan removed the note.
THE BOX BELONGS TO HALE.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
“No.”
“Jo.”
“My daughter is upstairs.”
“Which is exactly why you’re leaving.”
Twenty minutes later, Hazel and I were inside Stellan’s Gold Coast penthouse.
Hazel considered this an adventure.
I considered it kidnapping with excellent furniture.
“Do you have cereal?” she asked Stellan.
He stared at her.
“What kind?”
“Chocolate.”
“No.”
Hazel looked at me.
“Mom, he’s rich but he doesn’t have cereal.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Stellan rubbed his jaw.
“I’ll correct the oversight.”
That was how one of Chicago’s most intimidating businessmen ended up ordering six boxes of children’s cereal at eight thirty at night.
It should not have mattered.
But watching him kneel beside Hazel while she explained the difference between “good marshmallows” and “disappointing marshmallows” cracked something inside me.
Later, after Hazel slept, we went to the bank.
Stellan owned enough of it that opening a private vault after hours apparently required only one phone call.
The two keys turned simultaneously.
Inside the box were financial records, photographs and a flash drive.
There was also a letter addressed to me.
Jo,
If you’re reading this, I failed to come home.
My vision blurred.
Stellan remained silent beside me.
The letter explained everything.
Lillian had discovered that Victor Hale was using subcontractors connected to both Hale Development and Voss Industries to launder money through municipal construction projects.
Adrian discovered it too.
They planned to expose him.
But someone inside Voss Industries was helping Hale.
Lillian had become pregnant.
Then threats started.
She disappeared to protect her unborn child.
Adrian remained behind because running together would confirm where she had gone.
He intended to follow later.
He never made it.
His fatal car crash had occurred eleven months afterward.
I lowered the letter.
“His accident wasn’t an accident.”
Stellan said nothing.
That silence answered me.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“For five years?”
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“And you’ve spent five years doing what?”
“Trying.”
His voice cracked with something I had never heard from him.
Grief.
I looked at the documents.
“Who was the insider?”
“We don’t know.”
A noise sounded outside the vault.
Stellan immediately stepped in front of me.
The door opened.
Evelyn entered.
“You need to see this.”
She handed Stellan a tablet.
Security footage showed someone entering his office earlier that evening.
A man used an executive keycard.
He crossed directly to Stellan’s desk and searched it.
I recognized him.
He had visited Stellan at Crestwood twice.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Perfect suits.
“Who is that?”
Stellan’s expression became unreadable.
“My uncle.”
Richard Voss.
Chairman of Voss Industries.
The man who had raised Stellan and Adrian after their father died.
The man Stellan trusted more than almost anyone alive.
“He has access to everything,” Stellan said.
Evelyn nodded.
“Including the private investigation into Lillian.”
My stomach dropped.
“So whoever threatened Hazel knew because—”
“Someone inside my company told them.”
Stellan looked at the vault.
Then at me.
“We need to assume everyone is compromised.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message.
YOU WANT YOUR SISTER? COME ALONE.
Below it was an address.
And a photograph.
A woman stood beside a window holding today’s newspaper.
She was older.
Thinner.
But I knew those eyes.
I knew that face.
May you like
My sister was alive.
And whoever had her knew exactly where to find me.
