Chapter 23: The Open Door

I did not open Conway's letter.

I held the envelope by one corner over Nate's kitchen table.

His handwriting was neat and upright.

"You could read it," Nate said. "Or I could."

"No."

I wrote across the front, in pen: *Return to sender.*

I handed it back to Nate, and he put it in his jacket pocket.

"The prosecutor wants any contact he tries," he said. "She'll log it."

"Good."

"Are you all right?"

"I'd rather get a letter from a man who means it," I said.

He grinned, and I kissed him on the way out the door.

The house on the hill had a sign at the gate that said BY ORDER OF THE COUNTY.

The court had frozen everything Conway owned the day he pleaded.

His lawyer had argued, and lost.

The watches were to be sold for restitution, and what was left would go to a fund the judge had named for women's shelters.

I had asked to be there when the vault opened.

I went in alone.

The study was cold.

His desk was bare, and the blotter had been taken away with the glass and the decanter and the steel bottle.

The door of the watch room stood open, and one of the court's men had propped it with a folded box.

I stopped on the threshold.

The spotlights were on.

Thirty-one cases glittered under the lights, and the shelf of Murano vases glowed in the far corner.

For five years I had been afraid of this room.

I had walked past its door sideways, with my arms around my ribs.

I took out my phone and opened the vault app.

The red LOCKDOWN button sat where it had always sat.

Under it was a small gray line I had never pressed.

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