Maya didn't take the key immediately.
She stared at it in her mother's palm.
“What does it open?”
Denise looked frightened.
“Your grandfather's storage room.”
“I thought he didn't have one.”
“He did.”
“Where?”
Denise glanced at Robert.
He shook his head.
Rachel whispered, “Mom.”
Denise closed her fingers around the key.
“It was underneath the old house.”
Maya's pulse quickened.
“You told me there was no basement.”
“There isn't one anymore.”
Maya frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“After the fire, the room was sealed.”
“What fire?”
Denise's face crumpled.
“The fire that destroyed your grandfather's workshop.”
Maya remembered that.
Barely.
She had been four.
She remembered smoke.
A siren.
Her father carrying her outside.
She had always believed the workshop burned by accident.
“Wasn't it?”
Denise didn't answer.
Maya took the key.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Robert stood.
“That's enough for tonight.”
Maya turned on him.
“No. It isn't.”
He sighed.
“Your grandfather was investigating financial fraud.”
“Whose?”
“We never proved it.”
“Then why hide the room?”
“Because someone tried to kill him.”
Maya went silent.
Lily shifted beside her.
“Mom?”
Maya looked at her daughter.
“We're going home.”
Robert stepped forward.
“You shouldn't take that key.”
“Why?”
“Because opening that room could make things worse.”
Maya looked at the key again.
“Worse for whom?”
Robert didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
Maya gathered Lily's coat and shoes.
Rachel followed them toward the door.
“Maya.”
She stopped.
Rachel looked genuinely shaken.
“I shouldn't have touched her.”
“No.”
“I was scared.”
“You were angry.”
Rachel nodded.
“I was both.”
Maya opened the door.
Rachel continued.
“Dad told me something else.”
Maya turned.
“What?”
“He said if Mom ever gave you the key, you shouldn't trust the first thing you find.”
Maya stared at her.
“Why?”
Rachel's eyes filled with tears.
“Because your grandfather didn't keep the important records in the room.”
Maya waited.
“He kept the names.”
“Whose names?”
Rachel shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Maya left.
The drive home was silent.
Rain tapped against the windshield, and Lily slept in the back seat with her head against the window.
Maya kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other closed around the key.
She could still feel the ridges of the metal through her palm.
At home, she carried Lily upstairs and waited until her daughter was asleep.
Then she went into the garage.
The old family house had been sold years ago, but Maya still possessed a cardboard box of her grandfather's belongings.
She had never opened most of it.
Tonight she did.
Photographs.
Receipts.
A rusted hammer.
An envelope.
Maya pulled it free.
Her grandfather's handwriting covered the front.
She opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Three men stood outside the workshop.
Her grandfather was on the left.
The man in the center was a stranger.
The third man was not a stranger.
Maya knew him.
She had seen his face that evening at the dinner table.
Robert.
Her father had once told her Robert had never met her grandfather.
Maya turned the photograph over.
A date was written on the back.
The same date as the fire.
Beneath it were four words:
*HE KNOWS ABOUT MAYA.**
Maya's phone rang.
She nearly dropped the photograph.
The caller ID showed an unknown number.
She answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a man's voice came through, low and careful.
“Don't open the room.”
Maya stood perfectly still.
“Who is this?”
The line went dead.
A second later, her garage door began to rise.
Maya looked toward the driveway.
A black car was waiting outside.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Black Car Waited Outside Her Garage While Maya Realized Someone Had Been Watching Her Family for Years
The Dinner Was Supposed to Mend Our Family Until My Daughter’s Cry Changed Everything
Part 4 of 20
