Chapter 25 #3
How did you explain a father who hollered at his kids to duck down when a cop passed them on the highway or a mother who taught them to be quiet and hide whenever someone knocked on their trailer door?
As an adult, he’d figured it out. His mom had been writing hot checks, floating money they didn’t have to keep food on the table.
His father had been caught killing gators without the proper tags, trying to feed eight kids with whatever the swamp provided.
Both parents had been constantly at risk of being picked up on outstanding warrants.
No wonder they’d bailed when he got arrested.
The St. James family survival strategy had always been simple: Avoid law enforcement at all costs.
When their third-born son ended up in handcuffs for killing a man, even if it was to save a girl’s life, they’d cut him loose rather than risk exposure, and he was just now figuring it out.
Fiske opened the tackle box. The rusty hinges squeaked like old bones. Inside, the compartments were exactly as Blade remembered. Organized with the obsessive care of a boy who owned almost nothing and treasured what little he had.
Hooks sorted by size. Lead sinkers arranged by weight. A few lures his father had given him for his thirteenth birthday. And there, tucked into the bottom compartment beneath a tangle of fishing line, he saw it.
“My wallet.” A cheap Ocean Pacific trifold with fraying edges. His brother’s, originally. Or maybe his dad’s. He couldn’t remember anymore. “I forgot I even had that.”
Fiske looked to Garrison, who nodded. The clerk placed the wallet on the table.
Blade stared at the worn fabric. When he slid the wallet into his back pocket, he’d felt rich. Adult. Important.
“May I?” he asked Fiske.
Fiske glanced at Garrison, who nodded. Then he said, “If you can provide proper identification, I can turn these items over to you right now.”
“You should’ve had this years ago,” Garrison said.
Blade pulled out his driver’s license and handed it over.
Fiske’s pen scratched across the release form, copying information.
Each stroke felt like another layer of bureaucracy peeling away from that night.
When Fiske finished, Blade didn’t bother putting his license away.
He grabbed the wallet and ripped the Velcro open with a grin.
“They don’t make Velcro like this anymore.”
“Good thing,” Tori said. “That thing’s loud enough to wake the dead.”
He chuckled and checked the largest compartment first. A single dollar bill sat folded inside, creased from years of pressure.
“That’s not going to cover my fee,” Janice said.
He chuckled again and dug deeper. He found his old school ID with a grainy photo of a chubby kid with too-long hair and wide eyes. Then his fingers found the photograph tucked behind it.
The image stole his breath.
His parents stood in front of their trailer, his father gripping an alligator by the tail. A second, even larger gator lay dead at their feet. His mother, visibly pregnant, held a baby on her hip while Blade and two of his brothers straddled the dead reptile like conquering heroes.
The laughter that escaped him was half sob, half joy. He’d forgotten how young his parents had looked, how proud his father’s stance was, how his mother’s smile could light up even the grimmest of circumstances.
“Can I see?” Tori asked softly.
Blade nodded and passed the photograph to Tori, his gaze already shifting to the wallet’s remaining compartments.
The ache in his chest caught him off guard—raw and immediate, like touching a live wire.
These people in the photo, frozen in their moment of triumph—they belonged to someone else’s life.
He’d built himself into something different, something better.
The forgiveness had been real, the moving forward complete.
So why did his throat feel like it was closing?
He focused on the wallet’s inside pocket. Empty. The opposite side yielded nothing either. The final compartment where he hid his coins required prying the stubborn Velcro apart. The sharp ripping sound blasted through the quiet room. He dumped the contents into his palm.
Three nickels, a dime, six pennies. And something that didn’t belong.
A tarnished brass key, no bigger than his thumb, sat among the coins like an intruder. The metal was worn smooth at the edges. He’d memorized every inch of this wallet as a kid, counted these same coins a hundred times, dreamed of the day he’d have enough money to fill every pocket.
This key had never been there.
“I’ve never seen this before.”
Janice leaned forward, studying the key through her reading glasses. “Looks like a safe deposit box key. See the number etched on the side?”
“I never had a safe deposit box,” Blade said. “I didn’t even have a bank account.”
Tori’s eyes met his across the table, and he saw his own realization reflected there.
“The notebook,” she breathed.
“Damien must’ve hidden it while cataloging evidence.” He held the key up and stared at it. “We have to find the box that matches this key.”