Chapter 2 - The Drawer That Had Been Opened
Mia left the family dinner before anyone served the food.
Kyle followed her to the driveway.
“You’re overreacting.”
She unlocked her car.
“You used my financial information.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You just admitted my salary helped Brianna qualify.”
“That does not mean your identity was used.”
“Then whose name is on the loan?”
Kyle did not answer.
Mia opened the driver’s door.
He placed one hand against it, stopping her from closing it.
“You need to think about what happens when you create problems for this family.”
Mia looked at his hand.
“Move.”
“We protected you after Evelyn died.”
The use of her mother’s name made Mia pause.
Kyle rarely said Evelyn.
He usually called her your mother, as though the woman had never been part of the Mercer family.
“You were thirteen,” he continued. “You had nothing. No father, no mother, no home.”
“I had a home. Lorraine sold it.”
“To pay debts.”
“What debts?”
Kyle removed his hand.
“Ask Lorraine.”
“I have asked. She always changes the subject.”
“That should tell you the subject is painful.”
“It tells me she does not want me to know the answer.”
Kyle leaned closer.
“You think because you have a corporate title and a large salary, you understand everything. You don’t. Some truths destroy more than they repair.”
Mia got into her car.
“Then perhaps the family should not have put those truths on a vehicle application.”
She drove away before he could respond.
At her apartment, Mia went directly to the bedroom.
The desk stood beneath the window exactly as she remembered it. A ceramic lamp occupied one corner. Three framed photographs stood beside it.
One showed Mia at graduation.
The second showed her mother holding her on a beach.
The third showed the Mercer family at a summer picnic taken two weeks before Evelyn’s death.
Mia unlocked the bottom drawer.
Her tax returns were inside a blue folder. Her passport rested beneath them. The copies of her driver’s license were stored in a white envelope.
Everything appeared untouched.
Then she noticed the paper clips.
Mia always used silver paper clips.
The tax folder was fastened with a black one.
Her passport had been placed beneath the tax returns instead of above them.
Small changes.
Meaningless to anyone else.
Proof to Mia.
She removed every document and spread them across the bed.
Her social security card was missing.
So was the original certificate from her mother’s life insurance policy.
Mia searched the drawer three times.
She checked the closet safe, the filing cabinet, and the locked box beneath her bed.
The documents were gone.
Her phone rang.
Brianna.
Mia declined the call.
A message appeared.
Do not embarrass us over one payment.
Another followed.
Kyle says you’re confused.
Then Lorraine sent a message.
Your mother would be ashamed of how you behaved.
Mia stared at the words.
For twelve years, Evelyn Mercer had been used as a weapon against her.
Your mother believed in family.
Your mother would have helped.
Your mother trusted Lorraine.
Your mother would not ask questions.
Mia opened the photograph from the summer picnic.
Evelyn stood behind Mia with both hands on her daughter’s shoulders. She was smiling, but her eyes looked tired.
Aunt Lorraine stood beside her.
Uncle Dean was holding a drink.
Kyle, seventeen at the time, was looking away from the camera.
Brianna was only fourteen.
In the background, a silver car was parked near the lake.
The police report stated that Evelyn’s vehicle had left the road during heavy rain and entered a flooded ravine.
The car was recovered.
Her body was not.
Lorraine had explained that the current carried it away.
A closed casket had been buried six days later.
Mia had never been allowed to see inside.
At thirteen, she had believed adults when they told her that some questions were too painful.
At twenty-five, she finally understood that pain and secrecy were not the same thing.
She enlarged the photograph.
Something white was visible in Evelyn’s hand.
An envelope.
On the corner, written in blue ink, were the letters MIA.
Mia had never noticed it before.
She turned the physical photograph over.
There was no date.
Only a message written in her mother’s handwriting.
When the time comes, trust the numbers.
Beneath the sentence was a sequence:
4 - 17 - 8 - 22 - 31.
Mia had seen those numbers somewhere.
She remained awake until nearly two in the morning searching old files.
At 2:14 a.m., she found them.
May you like
They were the final five digits of an account listed on her mother’s life insurance certificate.
The certificate that had disappeared from her locked drawer.
