Chapter 4 - the name beneath the ribbon
Leah called building security.
The hallway camera showed Chelsea placing the shopping bag outside the apartment. It also showed Leah picking up the burned paper.
Nothing showed the bag entering the apartment.
The camera had lost power for exactly forty-seven seconds.
During that gap, someone had opened Leah’s door without damaging the lock.
A maintenance worker checked every room while Maisie waited with their neighbor. Nothing appeared to be missing.
The red velvet dress remained on the coffee table.
Leah did not touch it.
She called Margaret.
“Was the dress in a sealed package?” Margaret asked.
“No. Why?”
“Check the hem.”
Leah used kitchen tongs to lift the fabric. A small section beneath the lower seam had been stitched recently.
She cut the thread.
A silver key fell onto the table.
A paper tag had been tied around it with red ribbon.
E.H. 214.
“Does that mean anything?” Leah asked.
“Elias Hale. Box 214.”
“Where?”
“The Hale family maintained private deposit boxes at Winterbridge National Bank. After Elias died, Richard claimed every box had been emptied.”
“Apparently not.”
“Do not go there alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“I will meet you when the bank opens.”
Maisie returned from the neighbor’s apartment an hour later. Leah hid the dress and told her there had been a problem with the lock.
At midnight, Leah woke to find Maisie standing beside her bed.
“I had the dream again,” the child said.
Leah lifted the blanket.
Maisie climbed beside her and rested her head against Leah’s shoulder.
“What happened in the dream?”
“The old man was sitting in the theater.”
Leah’s body became still.
“What old man?”
“The one from my school play.”
Maisie had mentioned him before. Leah had assumed he was a teacher’s relative.
“What did he look like?”
“White hair. Brown coat. He had a silver cane.”
Elias.
“What did he say to you?”
“He asked whether I liked being your daughter.”
Leah struggled to keep her voice steady.
“And what did you tell him?”
“I said it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Maisie smiled sleepily.
“Then he cried.”
Leah stared into the dark bedroom.
“How many times did you see him?”
“Three times. Maybe four.”
“Did he ever give you anything?”
Maisie nodded.
“A wooden bird.”
Leah remembered it. A small carved sparrow had appeared in Maisie’s backpack after a school performance. No teacher knew who had placed it there.
“Where is it?”
“In my memory box.”
They found the sparrow beneath birthday cards and adoption-day photographs.
Elias had carved wooden animals when Leah was young. Each one contained a hidden compartment.
She turned the bird over and pressed its wings together.
A narrow panel opened.
Inside was a strip of paper wrapped around a tiny brass cylinder.
The paper contained four handwritten words.
Find the name beneath.
Beneath what?
Leah examined the bird. The base had been painted dark brown, but a faint line ran beneath the varnish.
She scraped it gently with the edge of the silver key.
A name appeared.
ROSE.
Margaret arrived before dawn.
Leah showed her the bird, the cylinder and the word.
For the first time since they met, Margaret seemed shaken.
“Who is Rose?” Leah asked.
Margaret sat down slowly.
“Rose Mercer was my younger sister.”
“What does she have to do with my grandfather?”
“She worked as a nurse in his house.”
“Where is she now?”
“She died ten years ago.”
Leah placed the silver key beside the bird.
“Did she have a child?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with something Leah could not identify.
“Yes.”
“What was the child’s name?”
“I was told the baby died shortly after birth.”
“Told by whom?”
“Richard Hale.”
Silence settled over the kitchen.
Maisie slept in the next room, unaware that her wooden sparrow had opened a door into a dead woman’s past.
Margaret picked up the brass cylinder.
“This is not a cylinder,” she said.
She twisted one end and pulled out a tightly rolled photograph.
The image showed Elias Hale standing beside a hospital bed.
A young woman lay beneath a white blanket, holding a newborn child.
Rose Mercer smiled weakly at the camera.
On the back, Elias had written a date.
May you like
The date was nine years and eight months earlier.
Three weeks before Maisie had been found at a church shelter.
