Chapter 11: The Safe

Giselle wasn't in the house.

The housekeeper at Cedar Hill told us in a whisper that she'd left at five to see a family lawyer.

Christian lifted Poppy out of the guest bed himself, wrapped her in a blanket, and carried her to the car.

Constance stood on the steps and watched, and she did not say a word.

I rode in the back seat beside my daughter.

Nobody was going to tell me five hundred feet that morning.

Poppy slept the whole way with her fist wound into my sleeve.

At the Harbor Lane house the housekeeper took her to the kitchen for pancakes.

Christian watched them go, then turned to the study door and stood in front of it.

"You don't have to come," he said.

"I do."

He pushed the door open.

The study was the same room where I'd stood in a borrowed cardigan three days before.

Gray light came through the tall windows and lay across the oak desk.

Behind the desk, a framed oil painting of a ship hung on the wall.

Christian crossed to it and swung it away on its hinge.

A steel safe was set into the plaster.

He stood in front of it with his arms at his sides.

"I don't know the code," he said. "I've never known it. The lawyer has it written down. I just never opened it."

"Then we'll call the lawyer."

"No." He raised one hand. "Wait."

He lifted his fingers to the keypad.

They hovered a moment.

Then he began to press numbers, one at a time, steady and sure.

Zero, three, one, one.

The lock whirred.

The door clicked open.

He stared at his own hand.

"I didn't know that," he said slowly. "I didn't decide that. My fingers just went."

He didn't explain it and I didn't ask.

Inside the safe was a stack of folders, a small black velvet box, and a thick cream envelope with a court seal on the flap.

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