Chapter 7 - The House Key
By midnight, Grant was in custody and Linda had been taken in for questioning.
Emily was discharged with instructions to rest, follow up, and avoid returning home alone.
She laughed when the nurse said “rest.”
Sarah heard it.
“What?”
“I don’t remember how.”
“You’ll learn.”
They drove to Sarah’s house with Ellie in the back seat.
For the first fifteen minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Ellie said, “I need my backpack.”
Emily turned around.
“We’ll buy a new one.”
“My school laptop is in it.”
“We’ll get that too.”
“And the blue envelope.”
Emily froze.
“What blue envelope?” Sarah asked.
Emily looked at Ellie.
“The emergency papers.”
Ellie nodded.
Sarah pulled into a gas station and parked under the lights.
“Tell me.”
Emily exhaled.
“Copies of birth certificates. My passport. Ellie’s school records. Bank paperwork. A list of numbers.”
“Where?”
“In the house.”
Sarah stared at her.
“No.”
“The police sealed the shed, not the house.”
“No.”
“I need those documents.”
“You need to stay alive.”
Emily looked out the window.
Sarah softened.
“We’ll ask an officer to escort us tomorrow.”
Ellie spoke from the back.
“There’s something else.”
Both women turned.
Ellie held up a brass key.
It hung from a red thread.
Emily recognized it immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
“Dad dropped it last week. I picked it up.”
Emily took it.
The key belonged to the small metal cabinet in Grant’s workroom.
He had told her it held tools.
He kept it locked even when he was home.
Two months earlier, Emily had heard him inside the workroom at 2:00 a.m., whispering on the phone.
She had caught one phrase through the door.
“Once her credit is ruined, she’ll stop threatening to leave.”
At the time, she had convinced herself she heard wrong.
Now she knew better.
Sarah stared at the key.
“What do you think is in the cabinet?”
Emily closed her hand around it.
“I don’t know.”
Ellie whispered, “I do.”
Emily looked back.
May you like
Ellie’s eyes were wide.
“I saw Dad put your name inside it.”
