Chapter 3 - Unit Nine
At nine the following morning, Thomas arrived at Briar Glen Storage with Jonah and attorney Grace Miller. Snow lined the chain-link fence. A paper Santa hung crookedly in the manager’s window.
The manager, Mr. Flores, checked the receipt and frowned.
“Mrs. Vale was here yesterday.”
“Anna?” Thomas asked, though he knew the answer.
“The current Mrs. Vale. She said the unit was part of an estate inventory.”
“Did you let her in?” Grace asked.
“She had a key and knew the access code.”
“Was anything removed?”
Flores pulled up the entry log. “Two boxes. Maybe three. She brought a van.”
Thomas felt anger rise, then forced himself to ask a useful question. “Is the unit still rented in Anna’s name?”
“Yes. Payments never stopped.”
Grace produced the documents authorizing access through Anna’s estate. Flores checked them and led the group down a corridor smelling of cardboard and cold concrete.
Unit Nine contained a rocking chair, three sealed plastic tubs, and a narrow filing cabinet. A patch of clean floor showed where boxes had recently stood.
Thomas recognized the rocking chair. He had assembled it the night before Rosie was born, cursing a missing screw until Anna found it in his shirt pocket.
He sat in it for one moment, then stood again.
The first tub held baby clothes and Christmas ornaments. The second held payroll records from Vale Hardware. The third contained greeting cards, each addressed to a different child.
Grace opened a card. “Who’s Mia Saunders?”
Thomas knew the name. Mia was the daughter of a warehouse employee who had died in a forklift accident. The company had paid her family a settlement.
Another card bore the name of a child whose father had been injured on a job site.
“Why would Anna collect these?” Jonah asked.
Thomas opened the filing cabinet. Inside was a ledger marked WINTER RELIEF.
The fund was supposed to pay for groceries, heating bills, and toys for employees in difficulty. Anna had helped establish it. After her death, Meredith volunteered to run its annual gala.
The ledger showed legitimate payments alongside a series of transfers to an organization called Hearthstone Family Services.
Grace checked the dates. “These started before Anna died.”
“And continued after,” Thomas said.
Flores returned carrying a small envelope. “I almost forgot. Mrs. Anna left instructions for me to hand this to her husband if he ever came in person.”
Inside was a brass key and a photograph of a farmhouse.
On the back Anna had written: ASK HENRY WHY THE BASEMENT WINDOW IS BRICKED UP.
Henry was Thomas’s older brother. He ran the company’s distribution division and had attended the Christmas Eve dinner. He had watched Rosie be humiliated without leaving his chair.
Thomas called him.
Henry answered on the second ring. “Is this about Meredith? She overreacted, but you can’t ruin Christmas over it.”
“It’s about the farmhouse.”
The line went quiet.
“Which farmhouse?”
“The one with the bricked-up basement window.”
Henry breathed into the phone.
“Thomas, wherever you are, leave.”
“Why?”
“Because Anna made a mistake going there.”
A vehicle engine started somewhere behind Henry.
“Henry?”
His brother whispered, “They’re here.”
The call ended.
Ten minutes later, a photograph arrived from Henry’s number. It showed Rosie’s old bedroom in Thomas’s mansion, empty except for a child-sized suitcase placed neatly on the bed.
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A message followed:
YOUR DAUGHTER’S THINGS ARE PACKED. NEXT TIME WE PACK THE GIRL.
