Chapter 6 - THE LOCKED DRAWER
The police separated us.
Grant was taken outside for questioning.
Mom stayed with Sophie.
William and Caroline left after giving statements.
I went to the hospital with Officer Ramirez.
My ankle wasn’t broken.
Badly sprained.
The doctor wrapped it and gave me crutches.
At 2:13 in the morning, Ramirez drove me home.
Grant wasn’t there.
“He agreed to stay somewhere else tonight,” she said.
I looked at Mom.
“Agreed?”
Ramirez understood my tone.
“There isn’t enough at this point to hold him.”
At this point.
That phrase stayed with me.
Mom made tea nobody drank.
Sophie fell asleep on the couch beside me.
For almost an hour, none of us spoke.
Then I asked the only question that mattered.
“Did you marry Grant because Dad accused him?”
Mom closed her eyes.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I was alone.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He helped me.”
“With what?”
“Money. Bills. Lawyers.”
“Lawyers for what?”
She stared at me.
Then looked away.
I knew.
“Dad’s investigation.”
Mom nodded.
“I was scared.”
“So you married him?”
“Not immediately.”
“Eleven months.”
Her face crumpled.
“You think I don’t know how that looks?”
“I don’t care how it looks!”
Sophie stirred.
I lowered my voice.
“I care whether he had something to do with Dad dying.”
Mom shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspected him.”
“I suspected everyone.”
I stared at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were thirteen.”
“I’m seventeen now.”
“And every year I told myself I’d explain when you were older.”
“That’s what adults say when they want a lie to become permanent.”
She flinched.
Good.
I wanted her to feel something.
I looked toward Grant’s office.
The door was closed.
Then I remembered Sophie’s medicine.
The bottom drawer.
Grant had locked it.
I grabbed my crutches.
Mom stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To his office.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“No?”
“Emma, there could be private company documents.”
“Dad’s company documents?”
Her silence told me enough.
I moved down the hallway.
Mom followed.
“Emma, stop.”
I reached the office door.
Locked.
“Where’s the key?”
“I don’t know.”
I took one crutch and slammed the metal end against the door handle.
“Emma!”
Again.
The lock cracked.
Again.
The door opened.
Grant’s office smelled like leather and expensive cologne.
Everything was arranged perfectly.
I went straight to the desk.
The bottom drawer was locked.
I searched the top drawers.
Pens.
Receipts.
Cuff links.
Then I found a small brass key taped beneath the center drawer.
Mom whispered my name.
I unlocked the bottom drawer.
Inside were Sophie’s medicine.
My phone.
Two old envelopes.
And a red file folder.
I pulled it out.
Across the front, handwritten in black ink, were the words:
MICHAEL CARTER — EAST RIVERTON.
My father’s name.
I opened the folder.
The first page was a photocopy of his original complaint.
The second was an invoice.
The third was a photograph of Grant standing beside my father at a construction site.
Then something slipped onto the floor.
A memory card.
Mom stared at it.
Her voice barely existed.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
May you like
She looked at me.
“I gave that card to the police four years ago.”
