Chapter 1 - The Envelope Beneath the Floorboard
Six weeks earlier, Emily woke to the sound of someone knocking on the apartment door.
Not a polite knock.
Three hard blows shook the thin wood in its frame.
Her daughter Lily began crying in the bassinet beside the bed.
Emily sat up quickly and checked the small electric heater near the wall. It had turned itself off again during the night. The apartment was cold enough that she could see a faint cloud when she breathed.
She lifted Lily, wrapped the baby in the cream blanket and approached the door.
“Who is it?”
“Building management.”
Emily closed her eyes.
She already knew why they had come.
The envelope slid beneath the door before she could respond. Red letters were printed across the top.
FINAL NOTICE.
Emily waited until the footsteps disappeared before picking it up.
She had ten days to pay the overdue rent or leave.
The total was $1,840.
It might as well have been a million.
Three months earlier, Emily had worked full-time at a downtown hotel while completing remote accounting courses at night. Then Lily had been born six weeks early. The baby was healthy now, but the hospital bills had erased what little Emily had saved.
The hotel had promised to hold her position.
It had not.
Emily placed the notice on the kitchen counter beside an unopened electricity bill.
“You’re all right,” she whispered to Lily. “We’re going to be all right.”
She said it because Lily needed to hear a calm voice.
She also said it because she was afraid of what might happen if she stopped pretending.
That afternoon, Emily began packing the apartment.
She intended to sell anything she could live without. A small television. Two dining chairs. A box of old books. The winter coat that no longer fit her.
While pulling a damaged suitcase from beneath the bed, she noticed one of the floorboards had lifted slightly.
Emily pushed it down.
It rose again.
She knelt and carefully worked her fingers beneath the edge.
Under the board was a metal biscuit tin covered with dust.
Her mother had hidden things in tins when Emily was young. Spare keys. Emergency cash. Birthday cards she wanted to save.
But Emily’s mother, Lydia, had been dead for nearly nine years.
Emily opened the tin.
Inside were photographs, a silver locket and three sealed envelopes.
The first envelope was addressed to Emily in her mother’s handwriting.
The second bore Warren Hale’s name.
The third had only four words written across the front.
For Emily’s first child.
Emily’s hands began to shake.
She had believed everything belonging to her mother had been taken to the Hale estate after the funeral. Richard had told her the apartment had been cleared before Emily returned from college.
Yet the date written on the third envelope was two weeks after Lydia’s reported death.
Emily stared at it.
Then Lily began crying.
Emily set the envelope down without opening it and lifted her daughter.
As she paced the small room, her eyes remained fixed on the tin.
After Lily fell asleep, Emily opened the letter addressed to her.
My dearest Emily,
If you are reading this, something has happened that I was unable to prevent.
Your grandfather has created a trust for you. The first payments will begin when you turn twenty-one. The money is not a gift from Richard, and it is not controlled by Vanessa. It comes from shares that belonged to me.
Never sign anything they place in front of you without speaking directly to Warren.
Emily stopped reading.
A chill moved through her that had nothing to do with the broken heater.
She had turned twenty-one six years ago.
There had been no payment.
No call from Warren.
No trust documents.
Richard had told her the family’s investments had collapsed following her mother’s death. He claimed Warren blamed Emily for refusing to attend the final family meeting.
But Emily had never been invited to a meeting.
She looked at the eviction notice.
Then she looked at the sleeping baby.
At the bottom of Lydia’s letter was a telephone number.
Emily recognized the Chicago area code but not the rest.
She dialed.
The number rang once.
A recorded message answered.
“The number you have called is no longer in service.”
Emily lowered the phone.
A moment later, it rang in her hand.
The caller ID showed UNKNOWN.
She answered cautiously.
No one spoke.
Emily heard breathing on the other end.
May you like
Then a man’s voice whispered, “You were not supposed to find that letter.”
The call ended.
