The Heiress and Her Bodyguard novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Box 4417

The key opens a bank box with a recorder, a ledger and a Braille note she reads herself.

I kept my fingers on his wrist and waited.

Jonas took his hand off the gearshift and put both on the wheel.

"It looks like a bank key," he said.

"Why does it look like a bank key?"

"Brass, short shaft, a number stamped on the bow."

"I saw it for a second before you shut your hand."

I pulled the key out of my sock and ran my thumb across the flat end.

The numbers were raised.

Four, four, one, seven.

Under them were three letters, N, S, B.

"Northstar Bank," I said.

"My father banked there before I was born."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Stop calling me ma'am."

"It's Linnea."

He was quiet for half a block.

"Linnea," he said.

It was strange, hearing my name said slowly by a man who might have helped kill my father.

I liked how it sounded, and I hated that I liked it.

Northstar's main branch had a revolving door that clicked and a floor that echoed.

I used my cane there, because strangers like to see it, and they step aside for it.

Jonas stayed one pace behind my left shoulder.

I could feel him.

A banker met us at the vault, a young man with a damp handshake and a voice that cracked on "Ms. Haugland."

"I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Your father added you as the sole signatory last month."

"He was very particular about it."

"Last month," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

The vault smelled of cold metal and floor wax.

A drawer slid out of the wall.

The banker set it on a table and left, and the door shut with a soft, heavy click.

I counted three people's worth of silence in the room, mine, Jonas's, and the hum of the lights.

"Describe it," I said.

"A long steel box."

"Gray."

"Open the lid."

I unlatched it myself.

My fingers found three things.

A small flat recorder, the size of a deck of cards.

A thick book with a cloth cover and ruled pages.

A single stiff slip of paper, pitted with raised dots.

I put the slip against my chest, flat.

"The book," I said.

"Read it to me."

Jonas took it.

Pages turned.

For a while he said nothing at all.

"It's a ledger," he said.

"Dates, amounts, account names."

"Small ones, the first year."

"Ten thousand to something called LH Resource, then twenty, then forty."

"Who signs?"

"Initials."

"L.H. on every line."

"Your uncle is Leif Haugland?"

"Yes."

"The amounts stop at the pension fund."

"Pension Reserve, Haugland Rail."

"The last transfer was nine weeks ago."

"One point two million."

I stood very still.

My father's company had two thousand employees.

Many of them had worked for him since I was a baby.

"Is there a line with my father's initials?"

"Three."

"Next to each, a note in his hand."

"'Found it.'"

"'Confirmed.'"

"'Tell no one until I'm sure.'"

"Where is the recorder?"

"Here."

"It's dead."

"There's a port on the end, but the cable is custom."

"My father had a dock in his desk," I said.

"I'll find it."

Jonas put the recorder in my hand and closed my fingers over it, and I felt him pause.

"What's the slip?" he asked.

"Paper."

"Linnea."

"It's nothing."

"It's a bank form."

I heard how steady I sounded, and for a moment I thought he believed me.

The thing about a man who guards a body for a living is that he reads breath the way I read pulse.

I felt his eyes on the paper against my chest.

"All right," he said, very low.

I waited until he went to hold the vault door.

Then I turned my back, lifted the slip to my fingertips, and read.

My father had learned Braille when I was twenty, sitting beside me at the kitchen table with a cheap slate and stylus, swearing at the dots.

His writing was always a little crooked, the rows of cells drifting uphill.

It was uphill now.

Jonas knows what I did.

Make him tell you.

Do not let anyone else tell you first.

I read it twice, and my fingers began to shake.

Behind me the vault door opened.

"Ready?" Jonas said.

I folded the slip into my sleeve and turned around.

My father had hired a stranger, and told that stranger a secret he would not put in front of me.

Then he had died saying that stranger's name.

"Yes," I said.

"Take me home."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend