Chapter 5 - What Claire Buried
"Second key?" Daniel asked.
Claire read the message, and color drained from her face. "Dad wore one on a chain. Brass. Shaped like a little heart, which was weird because Dad hated sentimental stuff."
"Where is it?"
"I put it in his coffin."
Daniel stared. "You buried a key with your father?"
"He asked me to. The day before he died." Claire spoke faster now, as if speed could make the memory less awful. "He held my wrist so hard it bruised. He said Owen must never have it. I figured it opened a safe. Maybe I'd finally get one question answered at the funeral, but then I couldn't do it. I just let it go with him."
Malik drove them home with two officers following. They found the red box exactly where the photograph showed it. A technician photographed the lid and lifted it with gloved hands. Inside lay an old cassette tape, a photograph of two boys standing beside a truck, and a handwritten list of payments beside dates. The handwriting matched Claire's father's Christmas cards.
"Who's the other boy?" Malik asked.
Claire leaned close. "Owen. And the older one is Mason Bell. Dad's business partner."
Mason Bell owned half the development projects in their county. He appeared on billboards shaking hands with school principals. Daniel had worked for his construction company during college. The man sponsored the children's wing at the hospital. He also had a habit of making people who sued him suddenly settle and leave town.
Malik placed the items in evidence bags. "Don't contact either man."
"We won't," Daniel promised.
At home, Eli had been quiet until the tape appeared. Then he twisted away from Claire and reached toward the box, crying, "No song. Bad song."
The tape label was written in a cramped black hand: FOR CLAIRE, IF I DON'T MAKE IT.
May you like
The detective turned the cassette over. On the plastic underside, almost invisible beneath the dust, someone had scratched three words.
MASON KILLED BEN.
