Chapter 12: The Locked Drawer

Sonya was sitting on the curb outside the Harbor East gym at twenty past six.

She had a cardboard tray of coffees on her knees.

She handed me a coffee without looking up.

"Milk," she said. "I remembered."

Then she looked at Nolan, who was getting out of the car behind me with a ring of keys.

She raised one eyebrow.

"This is the landlord."

"This is Nolan," I said.

"Sonya Larrabee. I know four ways to hurt a man without leaving a mark."

"I'm saying that so we start honest."

"Nolan Draper," he said gravely. "I'll keep it in mind."

Sonya looked at me and mouthed, "Oh, honey."

The gym was cold and dark and smelled of rubber mats.

Nolan unlocked the office with the master key.

The three of us stood inside it in the light of my phone.

The filing cabinet was against the back wall.

I knelt in front of the bottom drawer and held up the small brass key.

My hands were shaking too hard to fit it in.

Sonya put her palm over mine and steadied it.

It turned.

The drawer slid out with a long metal sigh.

There was only one thing inside, a thick accordion folder with a rubber band around it.

On the front, in Trevor's neat gym-owner printing, he'd written J.H.C.

I carried it to the desk and snapped off the band.

Inside were the envelopes, four years of them.

Chesapeake Fertility Associates, in blue ink, one for every spring and every fall.

Every flap had been slit open with a letter knife.

I had never seen a single one of them.

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