Chapter 3 - The Key in the Coat
Damian slept less than an hour.
At dawn, he brought Beatrice’s old coat into his study and placed it on the table between himself and Tessa.
“You knew about the key?” Tessa asked.
“I knew it existed.”
“And you didn’t think that mattered?”
“I thought everything about Beatrice mattered. That’s why she’s here.”
Tessa folded her arms. “That sounded almost human.”
Damian ignored it.
The key was brass, old, and unusually heavy. A tiny rose had been engraved near the bow. Damian had seen the symbol once before on the silver prayer book his mother kept beside her bed.
His mother, Evelyn Vale, had been dead twenty-nine years.
Cancer, the family statement had said.
A fast decline. Private burial. No public viewing.
Damian had been twelve.
He remembered Beatrice holding him the night before the funeral. He remembered asking why his father would not let him see his mother one last time.
He remembered Beatrice whispering, “Sometimes powerful men are most frightened by what the dead can prove.”
The next morning Beatrice was gone.
Damian looked at her now.
“Where does the key go?”
Beatrice rubbed her thumb over the engraving.
“Your mother gave it to me.”
Tessa leaned forward. “Before she died?”
Beatrice’s eyes shifted toward Damian.
“Before they said she died.”
The room went silent.
Damian’s chair scraped the floor as he stood.
“What did you say?”
Beatrice flinched.
Tessa immediately moved between them. “Back up.”
“I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Then stop looking like you’re about to tear the room apart.”
Damian forced himself to breathe.
Beatrice reached inside the coat pocket and touched the torn lining.
“There were two keys,” she whispered.
Damian looked down.
“Where is the second?”
“I gave it to someone who promised to protect the truth.”
“Who?”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
Before she could answer, Damian’s phone vibrated.
Grant.
“We traced the rose petal,” Grant said. “It came from the greenhouse.”
“That doesn’t narrow anything.”
“It does now. Someone opened the greenhouse at 1:06 this morning.”
“Who?”
Grant sent a still image.
Damian stared at the photograph.
A hooded figure stood under the greenhouse camera, face turned just enough for the lens to catch it.
Tessa looked over his shoulder.
Her face drained of color.
“No,” she whispered.
Damian looked at her.
“You know him?”
Tessa’s lips parted.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who is he?”
May you like
She pointed at the screen with a shaking hand.
“My sister’s doctor.”
