Chapter 3 - The Key Under the Chair
Claire waited until Daniel and Eleanor left the room to speak with Officer Perez before she called Maya Chen.
Maya answered on the second ring. "You're supposed to be at a prenatal yoga class."
"I almost got murdered."
Silence.
Then Maya's voice changed. "Tell me where you are."
Maya had been Claire's college roommate before becoming the kind of attorney who wore sneakers under courtroom clothes and remembered every lie anyone told her.
Forty minutes later she walked into the hospital carrying coffee, a legal pad, and fury.
"Start from the top."
Claire did.
When she finished, Maya read the photograph on Claire's phone.
"Who sent this?"
"I don't know."
"Could be Rosa. Could be a trap."
"I need that key."
"You are not going back there."
"Maya-"
"No. You have a baby trying to stay inside you and a husband who apparently believes homicide is estate planning."
Despite everything, Claire laughed once. It turned into a sob.
Maya squeezed her hand. "I'll get the key."
The next morning, Maya entered the Bennett mansion with Officer Perez under the excuse of collecting Claire's medication and overnight bag. Daniel objected until Perez reminded him Claire still had legal residence there.
The rocking chair was in the nursery.
The key was not.
Maya called Claire from the hallway. "Someone beat us to it."
Claire closed her eyes.
"Wait," Maya said.
"What?"
"There's something carved under the seat."
Maya sent a photo.
C.B. 214.
Charles Bennett. Daniel's father.
"Two-fourteen," Claire whispered. "A box number?"
"Or a room. Or a date."
Maya searched the nursery while Perez watched. Beneath the changing table she found an old envelope addressed to Claire in Charles's handwriting.
The envelope had been slit open.
Inside was nothing but a receipt from First Columbus Trust dated eleven months before Charles died.
Safe-deposit box 214.
Claire's pulse jumped.
"Can you access it?"
"Not without the key unless the bank accepts probate authority. But somebody wanted that key badly enough to search the room."
From downstairs came the sound of breaking glass.
Maya moved to the landing.
Daniel stood below her, staring up.
In one hand he held Rosa's purse.
In the other he held the brass key.
May you like
"You looking for this?" he asked.
And then the front door slammed behind Officer Perez.
