Chapter 3 - Mourning Clothes And Champagne Glasses
The audio clip went dead.
Static hissed through the tiny speaker.
“Who was that?” Tobias asked.
His eyes narrowed at the screen.
“I don't know,” I said.
“The voice was distorted.”
“A voice changer app.”
Tobias grabbed the phone and inspected the metadata.
“The signal bounced off three offshore towers,” he muttered.
“Whoever sent this knows how to hide.”
“They also know you might be alive.”
I stood up from the stool.
My legs felt surprisingly steady.
The shock of the thallium diagnosis had burned away my fatigue.
Rage was doing what medicine couldn't.
It was keeping me alive.
“The safe deposit box is at First Federal on Atlantic Avenue,” I said.
“Garrett has secondary access.”
“He shouldn't be able to open it without my key.”
Tobias gave a grim laugh.
“Rosalind, he just drove you into a river.”
“You think a bank manager with a forged signature stopped him?”
We drove into the city before dawn.
The rain had turned into a thick, gray fog.
We parked two blocks from First Federal.
The bank didn't open until eight.
Tobias pulled a dark cap over his forehead.
“Stay in the truck,” he said.
“No,” I told him.
“I spent three years letting men make my choices.”
“I’m coming inside.”
“You look like a ghost, Rosalind.”
“Good,” I said.
“Ghosts don't have anything left to lose.”
Tobias pulled an envelope from his pocket.
It contained a duplicate key and forged documents for bank access.
“I had these made four years ago,” he admitted.
“I was waiting for Garrett to make his move.”
We slipped through the delivery entrance at seven-thirty.
Tobias had the security codes for the maintenance doors.
The guard was on his morning coffee break.
We slid down the marble staircase into the vault basement.
The cold vault smelled of polished brass and old money.
I found box 412.
The lock was slightly scratched.
Someone had forced it within the last twelve hours.
I inserted my key.
Tobias turned his bypass tool.
The heavy brass door popped open.
Inside lay my mother’s pearl necklace.
Beside it sat an ivory velvet box.
And next to that was a blue folder I had never seen before.
I opened the blue folder.
My eyes widened in horror.
It was a life insurance policy taken out in my name.
The payout was twenty million dollars.
The primary beneficiary had been updated two weeks ago:
Penelope Mercer-Vance.
Penelope had taken Garrett’s last name on the paperwork before I was even dead.
Underneath the policy was a handwritten letter.
The handwriting belonged to my sister.
“Garrett my love. Once the water takes them, the board will have no choice. The
baby will inherit the entire eastern dockyard. Rosalind was always too weak to
run an empire. We are doing the family a favor.”
My breath hitched in my chest.
A favor.
She called drowning me a favor.
Beneath the letter sat a small, clear vial.
It contained a white crystalline powder.
The label read: Warfarin Sodium – Commercial Grade.
“He planted this here,” Tobias whispered behind me.
“Why?” I asked, tears burning my eyes.
“Because if an autopsy showed poison in your system, he needed a scapegoat.”
“He was going to tell the police you were mentally unstable.”
“He was going to claim you were poisoning yourself.”
“Or that you were trying to poison him.”
“This box was his insurance policy in case the drowning looked suspicious.”
Footsteps echoed from the top of the marble staircase.
High heels clicked sharply against the stone.
Then a man’s low laugh echoed down the hall.
“Hurry up, Garrett,” Penelope’s voice rang out.
“The memorial press conference is in two hours.”
“I need to wear Rosalind’s emerald pendant.”
“It matches my black silk dress.”
My heart slammed against my ribs like a caged animal.
They were here.
Tobias grabbed my arm.
He pulled me into the narrow space behind the open vault door.
The heavy steel door hid us in darkness.
Garrett and Penelope entered the vault.
They were dressed entirely in black.
Garrett wore a tailored charcoal suit.
He had a white bandage taped over his left temple.
A fake injury from his heroic escape.
Penelope wore a black mourning veil pushed back over her blonde hair.
Her cheeks were rosy.
She was smiling.
“Did you call the crematorium?” Penelope asked.
She leaned against the safe deposit boxes.
“The salvage crew hasn't pulled the SUV up yet,” Garrett replied.
His voice was so casual, so smooth.
The same voice that had read me poetry in bed.
“The river current is violent this morning,” Garrett said.
“The police said it might take forty-eight hours to recover the bodies.”
“Good,” Penelope purred.
“The more water damage to Rosalind’s body, the less the coroner can find.”
Garrett chuckled.
He reached out and pulled Penelope against him.
He kissed her neck hungrily.
“You’re wicked, Penelope,” he whispered against her skin.
“You love it,” she replied.
“Now open box 412.”
“I want that emerald.”
Garrett stepped forward.
His shoes were less than two feet from where I stood behind the door.
I could smell his cologne.
Sandalwood and bergamot.
The scent that used to mean safety to me.
Garrett reached toward the empty compartment.
His hand froze.
The door of box 412 was already swinging wide open.
The blue folder was missing.
The vial of rat poison was gone.
Garrett went rigid.
“Penelope,” he said.
His voice dropped an octave.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The box is open,” Garrett whispered.
“Did you send your lawyer here?”
“No,” Penelope stammered, stepping forward.
“You had the only key.”
Garrett reached inside the empty metal cavity.
His fingers pulled out a single item left behind.
It was my gold wedding band.
Covered in fresh, dripping harbor mud.
Garrett dropped the ring onto the floor.
It clattered across the marble tiles.
“She’s alive,” Garrett gasped.
His eyes darted wildly around the room.
Penelope grabbed his arm in terror.
“That’s impossible!” she shrieked.
“I watched the car sink!”
“Tobias was strapped to his chair!”
“She couldn't untie the wire!”
Garrett pulled a semi-automatic pistol from his jacket.
He racked the slide with a sharp metallic clack.
May you like
“She didn't get out alone,” Garrett snarled.
He pointed the gun directly toward the shadows behind the vault door.
