Chapter 17 - The Ghost of the Raleigh Estate
I waited until the silver sedan was out of sight before I opened the door.
The air was crisp,
smelling of pine and the approaching winter,
but the envelope felt hot in my hand.
I sat at the kitchen table,
my mother watching me with a hawk-like intensity from the doorway.
“Don’t open it,
Mal,”
she warned,
her hand resting on the back of Hazel’s chair.
“It’s a trap.”
“Vance was the one who funded Constance’s first boutique thirty years ago.”
“He’s the root of the rot.”
I ignored her,
tearing the seal of the envelope with a steady hand.
Inside was not a threat,
nor a legal summons.
It was a key.
A heavy,
brass key with a tag that bore a single address in the historic district of Raleigh.
Beneath the key was a letter,
written on heavy parchment.
“The Keenes lived in luxury,
but they never owned the vault beneath the old estate,”
the letter read.
“Derek was too stupid to find it,
and Constance was too arrogant to realize it existed.”
“Everything they took from your grandfather is inside.”
“And everything they hid from you about your own father is there,
too.”
My father had died when I was five,
or so I had been told.
A car accident,
sudden and tragic.
My mother had rarely spoken of him,
and there were no photos in our house,
only the silence that followed his name.
I looked at my mother,
and for the first time in my life,
I saw her flinch.
Her face went pale,
her eyes darting toward the key as if it were a venomous snake.
“Mom?”
I asked,
the suspicion rising in my throat like bile.
“What does he mean about my father?”
She didn't answer at first,
her hands trembling as she reached for the table to steady herself.
“Vance is a liar,”
she whispered,
but the conviction was missing from her voice.
“He’s trying to divide us,
Mallory.”
“He wants you to doubt the only person who has ever protected you.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
I asked,
standing up.
“Why is there a vault at the Keene estate that involves my family?”
The realization hit me with the force of a tidal wave.
My marriage to Derek hadn't been an accident of fate.
It hadn't been a chance meeting at a gallery opening.
It had been a long-game,
a calculated move by two families who had been intertwined for decades.
I looked at the key,
then at the woman who had helped me build my "war chest."
“I’m going to Raleigh,”
I said,
my voice a low,
dangerous growl.
“And you’re going to stay here with Hazel.”
May you like
“And if I find out you’ve been keeping a second gray folder from me,”
“God help us both.”
