Chapter 5 - The Kitchen Drawer
Nora told Abigail to preserve the message and stop replying to unknown numbers.
Abigail hadn’t planned to reply.
She wanted to throw the phone through a window.
Instead, she gave a statement to the police about the assault and the threat.
By late afternoon, she was cleared to leave with instructions to rest and return if certain symptoms developed.
“I’m going home,” she said.
Matteo glanced at Nora.
Abigail caught it.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Have a conversation about me without speaking.”
He looked embarrassed.
It surprised her.
“All right. I’m concerned about the message. Would you consider staying somewhere with security?”
“I need things from my apartment.”
“Then we’ll get them.”
“I’ll get them.”
He nodded.
“With someone beside you?”
She considered it.
“Yes.”
Her apartment was on the third floor of a brick building above a closed laundromat.
Isabella climbed the stairs beside her. Matteo and his security director, Owen Price, followed.
At the door, Abigail stopped.
The latch sat crooked.
She had locked it that morning.
Owen stepped forward.
“Stay here.”
He checked inside, then came back.
“No one’s here. Don’t touch anything.”
The apartment had been searched.
Not wrecked.
That made it worse.
Couch cushions lifted. Closet boxes opened. Papers stacked in the wrong order.
Someone had worked carefully through the small life she and Daniel had built.
Abigail walked to the kitchen doorway.
“The drawer.”
“What drawer?” Isabella asked.
“The one by the stove.”
It stood open.
Daniel’s employment records were gone.
So were his accident report, the settlement letter, and the notebook where Abigail had written down every call from the company.
But the baby clothes remained folded on the couch.
Her wedding photograph still faced the room.
They hadn’t wanted anything they could sell.
Police photographed the damaged lock.
Abigail waited in the hall, staring at the floor.
A door opened across from hers.
Mrs. Alvarez, her eighty-year-old neighbor, leaned out with a grocery bag.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Mrs. Alvarez, did you see—”
“Two men. I told the officer.”
She held out the bag.
“Daniel asked me to keep this.”
Abigail stared.
“When?”
“The Tuesday before the accident. Said it was your anniversary surprise.”
Inside lay a dented blue lunchbox.
Abigail knew every scratch on it.
May you like
Beneath the handle, Daniel had taped a note.
Abby—if I don’t explain this myself, call the woman whose card is inside.
