Chapter 2 - THE ENVELOPE
Daniel Mercer had not heard his dead wife’s voice in eleven years.
Yet when he saw her handwriting, he heard it immediately.
Danny.
Only Mara had called him that.
The envelope had arrived inside a box of belongings from his late mother’s storage unit.
Daniel sat alone at his kitchen table and turned the yellowed envelope over.
Across the front:
FOR DANIEL. ONLY IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME.
His hands started shaking.
Mara had died eleven years earlier when her car went through a guardrail during a rainstorm.
Police called it an accident.
Daniel had spent years forcing himself to believe them.
He tore open the envelope.
A small key fell onto the table.
Then a photograph.
Two young women stood outside a coffee shop.
One was Mara.
The other woman had dark hair, frightened eyes, and a Stellan Industries badge clipped to her jacket.
Daniel didn’t recognize her.
Behind the photograph was a handwritten message.
Find Claire Stellan.
She saw him.
Do not go to the police until you know who signed the Bellweather report.
Daniel read it three times.
His phone slipped from his hand.
Bellweather.
He hadn’t heard that name in years.
Bellweather Apartments had burned eleven years ago.
Four people died.
Daniel had been a young fire investigator then.
He had helped write the final report.
Electrical failure.
Accidental ignition.
Case closed.
Three weeks later, Mara died.
Daniel stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“No.”
He opened the rest of the letter.
Mara’s handwriting grew messier toward the bottom.
There’s a box in locker 317 at Grand Central Storage. The key is enclosed. If I’m wrong, burn everything. If I’m right, someone inside the Stellan family knows why Bellweather burned.
And Danny…
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.
Daniel pressed both palms against the table.
A memory came back.
The night before Mara died.
She had been standing in their bedroom, stuffing papers into a brown envelope.
He had asked what she was doing.
“Work.”
“Your work looks terrified.”
She had smiled.
“You worry too much.”
That was the last argument they ever had.
Daniel grabbed his coat.
Grand Central Storage was forty minutes away.
He arrived before closing.
Locker 317 was in the basement.
The brass key worked.
Inside sat one dusty metal box.
Daniel carried it into the hallway and opened it.
Newspaper clippings.
Copies of building inspections.
Photographs.
A digital voice recorder.
And one empty folder.
Its label read:
STELLAN - B17.
Daniel searched the box again.
Nothing.
Then he picked up the recorder.
One file remained.
He pressed play.
Static filled the hall.
Then Mara’s voice whispered through the speaker.
“If you’re hearing this, Claire didn’t make it back.”
A man spoke in the background.
Daniel recognized the voice.
May you like
And every drop of blood seemed to leave his body.
Because the man speaking to his wife was someone Daniel had trusted at her funeral.
