Chapter 2 - The Brass Key Hidden in a Child's Book—and the Funeral Guest Who Knew Too Much
Mara Ellis arrived at 12:43 a.m. without a bodyguard and carrying two paper cups of hot chocolate.
That detail mattered to Diane. She had expected black cars, threats, perhaps a man with a gun. Instead the attorney stood in the hallway with windblown hair and asked Sadi whether marshmallows were acceptable.
Sadi said yes. Diane said nothing.
Mara listened as they described the stranger at the funeral. She photographed the brass key, but did not take it from Sadi's hand.
“Where did your parents work?” she asked.
“Mom was a bookkeeper for a transportation company,” Diane replied. “Dad repaired commercial refrigeration systems. Why?”
“Which transportation company?”
“North Shore Freight.”
Mara put down her cup.
Diane noticed. “What?”
“North Shore Freight was acquired by a Greedy holding company three years ago.”
The room became very quiet.
“Are you telling me my parents worked for Ravi Greedy?”
“Indirectly. It was a subsidiary. Mr. Greedy wasn't involved in daily operations.”
Diane gave a disbelieving laugh. “Of course he wasn't.”
“I know how that sounds.”
“Do you?” Diane demanded. “My parents are dead. A woman who knows his business partners pays me to humiliate him. And now a man from my parents' funeral is asking about us. How much coincidence do you expect me to swallow?”
“None,” Mara said. “I expect you to ask questions.”
Sadi curled into the couch, watching them over the rim of her cup.
Mara turned toward her. “Would you feel safer staying with Mrs. Alvarez tonight?”
Sadi looked at Diane. Diane nodded, and the little girl slipped on her slippers and crossed the hall.
Only when the door closed did Mara say, “The man in the brown coat is Owen Price. He's worked for Catherine Voss's father for fifteen years.”
“Her father?”
“Edmund Voss. Investment banker. Philanthropist. He once controlled North Shore Freight's pension fund.”
“Why would he care about my family?”
“That's what we need to learn.”
Diane rubbed her eyes. “I have a shift at six.”
“You don't have to work tomorrow.”
“Don't tell me what I have to do.”
Mara raised her hands. “Fair. What I mean is, if you want to meet an investigator and still make your shift, I'll arrange it around your schedule.”
That was the first time Diane realized the attorney was genuinely trying not to take control of her life.
At five the next morning, Diane woke to the smell of coffee and a knock from Mrs. Alvarez. Sadi was already dressed for school, carrying her backpack and the brass key on a string beneath her shirt.
“I want to keep it,” she said.
Diane crouched. “Okay. But don't show anyone. Not until we know what it opens.”
“Do you think Mom and Dad knew the scary man?”
“I don't know.”
“Are we in trouble?”
Diane wanted to promise no. Instead she took her sister's hands. “If something happens, we tell each other the truth. That's our rule.”
Sadi nodded solemnly. “Even when it's ugly.”
“Especially then.”
Diane spent the morning at a diner near the river, pouring coffee and pretending she wasn't checking the entrance every thirty seconds. At noon, her manager called her into the back office.
A photograph of the kiss was on his computer screen.
“You should have told me you were involved with a customer,” he said.
“I wasn't involved with him.”
“Some guests complained. The catering company says your conduct embarrassed the venue.”
Diane stared at him. “I was off my assigned station for less than a minute.”
“I'm sorry, Diane. We can't put you on the next event.”
She stood very still. Losing the charity shifts meant losing the income that paid for groceries.
“Is this because of the photograph?”
He avoided her eyes. “I'm not at liberty to say.”
Outside, the sky had the flat gray color of unwashed dishes. Diane sat on a bench and called Mara.
“They fired me.”
Mara exhaled. “I'm sorry.”
“Did he order it?”
“No. I checked. Catherine's assistant called the catering agency before breakfast.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Yes.”
“Then don't send Ravi Greedy to fix it. I want my job back because I deserve it, not because he's frightening.”
“Understood.”
A moment later, Mara added, “He wants to meet you.”
Diane looked across the street at a bus pulling away. “Of course he does.”
“He has information about the key.”
Diane hesitated. “Where?”
“His office. But you can bring anyone you want.”
“I'll bring you.”
Mara sounded faintly amused. “An excellent choice.”
Ravi Greedy's headquarters occupied the upper floors of a steel-and-glass tower overlooking the river. Diane had passed it hundreds of times without knowing who owned it. Today every polished surface seemed designed to remind her that she didn't belong.
Ravi stood by the window when she entered. He had traded the tuxedo for a charcoal suit, but the same unsettling stillness surrounded him. He looked tired. There was a faint bruise along one knuckle, and a stack of unopened files lay on his desk.
“Miss Harper.”
“Mr. Greedy.”
“I owe you an apology.”
That was not what she had expected.
“I grabbed your wrist,” he said. “I shouldn't have. I was angry, but that doesn't excuse it.”
Diane glanced at Mara, who remained by the door.
“And I owe you one,” Diane said carefully. “I kissed you without asking. I shouldn't have.”
He inclined his head. “Then we understand each other.”
“Not remotely. Your name is attached to the company my mother worked for, and a man from my parents' funeral is following my sister.”
Ravi's expression hardened, but not at her. “I learned about that last night.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes,” he said. “Suspiciously convenient.”
He opened a drawer and set a small black case on the desk. Inside lay a brass key almost identical to Sadi's. The crown inside the circle was unmistakable.
“My father used these for private document lockers,” he explained. “Not bank safe-deposit boxes. A records facility beneath our old shipping office.”
“Your father?”
“Dead for eleven years.”
“Then why would my parents have one?”
“I don't know.”
Diane studied his face. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to let me show you what I can verify.”
He slid a file across the desk. Inside was a photograph of Diane's mother, Laura Harper, standing beside a loading dock. A man in a tan overcoat stood near her. Owen Price.
The photograph was dated five days before the crash.
Diane touched the edge of the page. Her mother's hair was pulled into a messy knot, exactly the way she wore it while cooking. She looked impatient with the photographer, one eyebrow raised.
“Where did you get this?”
“From a private archive. It was filed under an internal investigation into North Shore Freight.”
“What investigation?”
“Missing shipments. False invoices. A pension account that should never have been touched.”
“Did my mother report it?”
“I think she tried.”
Diane stared at him. “And then she died.”
Ravi did not look away. “Yes.”
She pushed back her chair. “You think your company killed my parents.”
“I think someone used my company to do something criminal. I haven't established who.”
“Your reputation suggests you know a thing or two about crime.”
His mouth tightened. “My reputation isn't fiction. I've done things I'm not proud of. That doesn't mean I'm willing to let someone murder a family to cover theft.”
It was the first admission of wrongdoing she'd heard from him, and it frightened her more than a polished denial would have.
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing you're not willing to give. Mara can arrange independent counsel for you, paid through a fund she controls, with no obligation to me. You can refuse every meeting. You can walk out right now.”
Diane considered him. The dangerous man in the headlines had offered her a door instead of closing one.
“Show me the records facility,” she said.
Mara shook her head. “Not today. We need to confirm it's secure and preserve the evidence properly.”
Diane's temper flashed. “Every time someone tells me to wait, something disappears.”
“Then we'll get a court order,” Mara replied. “Something they can't make disappear quietly.”
Ravi looked at the key again. “There's one other thing.”
He handed Diane a photocopy of a handwritten ledger. Several entries were circled in red. At the bottom of the page was her mother's signature.
Beside it, in small block letters, Laura had written: IF THEY ASK ABOUT THE GIRLS, TELL THEM NOTHING.
Diane felt the words like a blow.
“Which girls?” she whispered.
Ravi answered with a question. “Did your parents ever tell you why they moved to Chicago?”
“Dad got a better job.”
“Before that, where did you live?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Before Milwaukee?”
Diane frowned. “I don't remember.”
Mara stepped closer. “Diane, your birth certificate was reissued when you were six.”
“That happens.”
“It does,” Mara agreed. “But your sister's was reissued on the same day, eight years later, with the same witness signature.”
Diane looked from the lawyer to Ravi.
“Whose signature?”
Ravi turned the page.
Edmund Voss.
Catherine's father.
The man who controlled the company where her mother had worked. The man whose employee had attended her parents' funeral. The man whose daughter had selected Diane from a ballroom full of waitresses and offered ten thousand dollars for a kiss.
The room seemed to narrow around her.
“What does he want from us?”
Ravi's phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and went very still.
“What's wrong?” Diane demanded.
He handed the phone to Mara. She read the message, then looked at Diane with an expression that made her stomach sink.
The text contained a photograph of Sadi standing outside her school.
May you like
Below it were six words.
THE KEY BELONGS TO US. TONIGHT.
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