Chapter 7 - THE BLUE FOLDER
I reached for the phone.
Maya pulled it away.
“No,” she told Martin.
“You don't understand the trouble you're creating.”
“I understand you left me in a shed.”
“This call is about protecting Caleb.”
“Then you should have called his lawyer.”
She ended the call and pressed the nurse button.
Her hand was shaking, but her voice wasn't.
Hospital security came first.
Ortiz arrived twenty minutes later.
Martin had called the switchboard, claimed to be Maya's uncle, and asked to be connected to her room.
He had not known her new number.
Her listing was removed, and the staff reviewed who could contact her.
Maya looked at me.
“I don't want to disappear from my own life because he's loose.”
“You shouldn't have to.”
“But I want to leave this room without looking over my shoulder.”
Ortiz didn't tell her not to worry.
She explained the precautions and asked what would help her feel safer.
Maya listened.
So did I.
The blue folder was still missing.
Maya said Martin had taken it out of the shed before I arrived.
It held the confession and copies of withdrawals he wanted her to acknowledge.
But she had seen another page underneath.
“A property address,” she said.
“Pine Hollow. I remember because we almost rented there before we bought the house.”
I knew that address.
Evelyn had bought a rental duplex on Pine Hollow two years earlier.
She said she'd saved for it by cutting back.
I had congratulated her.
Daniel asked me to send the old estate files I already possessed.
He also helped me formally request complete records for my trust share.
Nora did the same for hers.
Neither of us called Martin to warn him.
That night, Aunt Ruth brought a casserole nobody could eat.
She stood outside Maya's room until Maya invited her in.
“I'm sorry I believed her,” Ruth said.
Maya watched her carefully.
“About me leaving?”
“About a lot of things.”
Ruth set a small brass key on the bedside tray.
“Your father gave me this before his last surgery,” she told me.
“He said if anything happened, I should make sure you and Nora got the box in my garage.”
“Why didn't you?”
Her eyes filled.
“Evelyn told me she'd already given you copies.”
May you like
Nora stared at the key.
“What box?”
