A Life Beyond Us novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Envelope

I held the phone out so both of them could read it.

Hugh read the message once and shut his eyes.

"Hugh," I said. "What envelope?"

"It's in my bag."

"Your bag is in the guest room."

"I know where it is." He stood up too fast and caught the edge of the table. "I've carried it for two years."

Tom didn't move from the step.

"Rule one," he said quietly.

"I'm not breaking it." Hugh turned to me. "I'm telling you now, before you ask twice."

We went inside, all three of us, and he brought the duffel down from the guest room and set it on the kitchen table.

The envelope was at the bottom, under a pair of folded scrubs.

It was cream, heavy, with my old apartment's street name in Darcy's round handwriting crossed out and Hugh's Montana address written under it.

The flap was still sealed.

"It came two years ago in October," Hugh said. "I knew the handwriting. I put it in a drawer."

"Why keep it?" Tom asked.

"Because I couldn't burn it and I couldn't read it. Both felt like lying to somebody."

I turned the envelope over in my hands.

"Why bring it here?"

"I was going to give it to you, Tom. The night I got in. Then your wife walked up to the roof and I lost my nerve."

Tom almost smiled.

"Open it," he said to me.

"Together."

I slid my thumb under the flap, and Hugh and Tom came around the table until their shoulders touched mine on either side.

Inside was a USB stick and one sheet of paper.

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