Chapter 19: The Safe

Brendan closed the binder.

"Mom and Dad are at a dinner in the city tonight," he said. "Verity's at the hotel with the gala planner until ten."

"And she has a safe in her closet," he said. "I put it in for her when she was sixteen. She wanted somewhere to keep her mother's ring."

"Her mother's?"

"Her real one. The one who gave her up." He stood and pulled on his jacket. "I know the code. She never changed it."

We drove up to Lake Forest in his black Audi without talking.

Halfway there he said, "If there's nothing in it, I'm going to apologize to her. And you're going to let me."

"And if there's something in it..."

He didn't finish.

We went up the curved stairs together.

He walked on my right, my good side, a step below me, the way Dez did, and I hadn't known he'd noticed.

Verity's room was the one at the end of the hall.

My room.

The one with the window seat and the view of the lake.

It was all white now.

On the wall over the bed hung a framed foundation poster with my age-progressed face on it.

She slept under it every night.

The closet was the size of my flat.

The safe was in the back, behind a row of white coats.

Brendan crouched in front of it and put in six numbers without looking.

It beeped and swung open.

There was a velvet ring box on top.

Under it, a thin manila envelope.

And under that, two prepaid phones still sealed in their plastic packages.

Brendan picked up the phones first.

"Four," he said. "The assistant said four."

"Two are here," I said. "One called the tip line."

He put them down very carefully.

Then he opened the envelope.

A single sheet of paper.

Block capitals, in black marker, the way Uncle wrote when he wanted to look like nobody.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Watching My Fake Sister Dig Her Own Grave from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.