Chapter 18
Maddie and I stayed up late last night researching all possible options for the key. Annoyingly, when Connor called to check in at midnight, and Maddie blabbed to him about the key, it took him all of twenty minutes to find the bank whose initials matched. He looked through all the paperwork we saved from our parents but couldn’t locate a single invoice from the bank. He said the fact that there was no record of it made the situation sketchy and made me promise not to go to the bank without him.
Which is why I’m going while he’s at work.
What’s that saying? It”s easier to ask forgiveness than permission?
I should have waited. A good sister would have. But I’m too excited. What if it’s a huge family secret, what if it’s something life-changing?
I’m aware it could be nothing but old photos and videos, but I’m choosing to remain optimistic.
I park my car in a nearby garage and scope out the situation like a true amateur spy. But there’s nothing nefarious happening in or around the two-story colonial building. Stepping out of the car, I straighten my power outfit. The pencil skirt bunches around my hips and I tug at it, but it’s all twisted. I yank it this way and that, but it only becomes more bunched.
“What is wrong with you!” I grunt, pulling at the skirt.
“Excuse me?”
I jump, as surprised to see the older woman as she must have been to hear me yell at her.
“Oh, not you. My skirt.” I turn to show her my backside, then immediately think better of it.
“Hmph.” The woman scowls before clicking her heels out of the garage.
Well then.
I finally get my skirt situated and reach back into the car for my knockoff designer bag. And last but not least, the sunglasses. Perfect. Connor had said it was an upscale bank and I wanted to look the part. Which means I also made up a backstory. I’m a scorned daughter whose parents left her nothing but this safety deposit box while her evil brother inherited everything they owned and will kick her out and leave her destitute unless she finds the one item he secretly desires: their grandfather’s gold watch. I even practiced fake crying.
It’s too bad Caleb underutilized my wide skill set.
I walk confidently out of the garage, running the backstory through my mind in case I’m rejected from seeing the box. I’m hoping all I need is a key, but it’s possible I won’t be allowed access at all because I’m not the one who purchased the box. Which is why I should have brought my lawyer brother.
The bank—I can hardly call it that because it looks more like an executive lounge of some kind—has a security guard. It only reinforces my belief that whatever is in this box is important.
Excitement skitters across my skin in waves as I approach the long cherrywood desk, covering half of the far wall, manned by a single guy in a tweed blazer and spectacles.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he says.
Ooh. I’ve never been “ma’am”-ed before. This is so fun. I barely stop myself from bouncing on my toes.
Control…confidence…confetti…
Oops. Got a little off track there.
I straighten my shoulders, reining in the full power of the woman I’m pretending to be.
“I’m here to check my safety deposit box.” Why did I add an accent? One Regency movie does not a British person make.
The man, whose name tag reads Arnold, types into the computer, all while maintaining eye contact with me. He saw right through that faulty accent.
“Name?” he snaps.
“Amelia Quinn,” I say, keeping up the accent, because I’ve already dug my hole and now I have to die in it.
More typing. More eye contact. How does he do that?
“Identification?”
I pull out my driver’s license and slip it across the desk to him. He takes it and presses it into a machine beside his computer.
I hope I get that back.
Something beeps.
Was that a good beep or a “we’re-going-to-arrest-you-now beep?”
But the man only nods once before disappearing behind a half wall. Five seconds later he returns and beckons for me to follow him. He leads me through a door and down a narrow hallway that takes a sharp right, then pushes open another door.
“Wait here,” he instructs.
I step into the dimly lit room. The walls are covered in lockers. Deposit boxes. There’s a small table in the center of the room made entirely of cement. It looks like an altar, bigger at the bottom, and smaller on top. I stand by it, resting my hand on the smooth surface.
The lights flicker and I yelp. Am I about to be sacrificed? What if they require blood? Bonds by blood? That could be a movie title. No. Blood Bonds. Starring Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon, evil twins forced to fight against each other though they’ve never actually met…where am I going with this?
Focus.
The seconds tick by ridiculously slow as I wait. I’ve never been very good at waiting and it’s testing me. Is that what this is? Some kind of test I have to pass before they allow me to see the box? What did my parents leave here? And why did they choose a bank forty miles out of the city that neither I nor Connor had ever heard of?
I count my breaths because there’s nothing else to count. But now that I’m bringing attention to my inhales and exhales, my body forgets how to complete the natural function and they come faster and faster.
Now I’m hyperventilating.
Arnold appears in the doorway like a spooky magician.
I gasp. Then proceed to choke on the influx of air to my system.
“Are you alright, ma’am?”
“Great!” I squeak.
There goes the confidence. And the confetti.
“Number seventy-eight, right here.” Arnold inserts his key into the small rectangular locker and motions for me to enter my key into the other hole. He opens the door and pulls out the box. Wordlessly he drops the box and my driver’s license onto the altar and walks out the door.
I pause, my hand hovering over the lid. This is something big; I can feel it.
I take a deep breath and lift the lid, one slow inch at a time, then stop.
But what if it’s nothing?
I’m not ready for this last mystery of my parents to be solved yet. Maybe I should leave it. If I don’t know, it will remain a mystery and I’ll be able to pretend my parents are still off gallivanting around the world, living their best life. But what if it”s a treasure map? My parents loved art and history. Maybe they were secretly treasure seekers and that’s what took them to all the ends of the world.
I yank the lid up.
The first thing I see is a dirty handkerchief.
Not off to a great start.
I pinch a corner of the cloth with my thumb and forefinger, gently removing it to reveal a…jewelry box?
It’s only four inches wide and old, but gorgeous with thousands of crystals covering the lid in an ornate flower pattern. It’s familiar. Where have I seen it before?
I try to open the box, but nothing happens. I pick it up and try again. But it’s rusted shut. There is a tiny drawer in the bottom, but that too is jammed. I give it a shake. Something rattles inside but nothing comes loose.
That’s it?
I can’t even open the thing. It feels like a slap to the face of my hopes and dreams. This was supposed to change my life. It was supposed to mean something.
I turn the box over and over again in my hands and a memory sparks to life.
Before my parents left for Italy, I saw this on the counter when I went over to visit. My mom had been going through my grandmother’s things, storing some away, and donating others. I never saw it after that.
It was my grandmother’s.
Grief claws at my chest. I hardly knew my grandmother before she passed. What I wanted was another reminder of my parents. I wanted some memory I’d lost to the past to be replaced by whatever was in this box. I wanted a story of my mother to remember when I missed her. I wanted an adventure to make me feel like they were still out there living.
A tear slips down my cheek. I wanted more.
I wipe my tears away and tuck the jewelry box in my bag. I leave the handkerchief inside the safety deposit box and lock it up.
I walk back the way I came, my shoulders drooped, my confident persona abandoned and left to die where my hopes did.
I call Connor the second I get in my car.
“Let me guess, you went to the bank without me,” he answers immediately even though he’s at work.
“How did you know?”
“Because I know my sister can’t resist a mystery.” I hear the smile in his voice and imagine his eyes crinkling to make him look like Dad.
“Well, this one turned out to be a dud,” I mutter, starting the car as I tell him about what I found.
“That’s only because you haven’t figured out why it’s special yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our grandmother’s jewelry box was in a safety deposit box. The key for said box was stuffed into a box with a painting. Which I would like out of my office, by the way. No one goes to that much effort for nothing. Mom knew it was worth something. You know how she liked her vintage treasures.”
“That’s true.” Most of it was junk we sold or donated when she passed. But some of it was fun. I still have a candelabra and a brooch she brought back from Egypt once. A pair of sapphire earrings from Mexico as well. The items weren”t always expensive, but they always carried a story. I just need to figure out the story behind this one.
“There’s a purpose behind the box,” Connor says. “And you’ll figure it out.”
“You aren’t going to help me?” I ask.
“If you want my help, I’ll be there. But this is your dream. Maybe Mom and Dad set it up for you. Why else would your name be on the list to open the box if you weren’t meant to find it?”
My heart pounds against my ribcage. Could that be true?
“You may have a point, little brother,” I agree. Words I’m not sure I’ve ever said, to my brother of all people. But they provide me with hope anyway. My parents found the jewelry box important enough to lock away in a bank vault. And I’ll figure out why.