Chapter 15 - The GraveDetective Collins told me not to go.
So naturally, I wanted to go immediately.
But wanting and doing are different things when your daughter has almost been stolen from you twice in one week.
I stayed with Lily until Collins arrived with two officers.
Then, before sunrise, we drove to the cemetery.
Fog lay low over the grass.
Anna’s headstone stood beneath a maple tree, simple and pale.
ANNA HART REEVES
Beloved Wife. Devoted Mother.
Love Remains.
Someone had placed fresh white roses on the grave.
I had not brought them.
Neither had Lily.
Detective Collins noticed them too.
“Don’t touch.”
A crime scene technician photographed the flowers.
Beneath them was a small waterproof pouch.
Inside was a key.
And a note in Anna’s handwriting.
Daniel, if this key has been moved, then someone found one secret but not the other.
I stared at the note.
Rebecca had joined us, wrapped in a dark coat, her breath visible in the cold morning air.
She looked at the key.
“That’s not a safe deposit key.”
“No,” I said.
I knew what it was.
Anna and I had once rented a tiny storage locker near the train station when we were renovating the house. After Lily was born, we forgot about it until Anna joked that every marriage needed one place to hide ugly lamps and tax records.
I had closed the account after Anna died.
At least, I thought I had.
We drove straight there.
The manager, an older man named Pete, recognized me immediately.
“Mr. Reeves,” he said. “I wondered if you’d ever come.”
Detective Collins stepped forward.
“You knew about the unit?”
Pete nodded.
“Mrs. Reeves renewed it prepaid before she passed. Said only Daniel or Rebecca Sloan could open it. No one else.”
“Did anyone try?”
Pete’s face darkened.
“Twice.”
“Who?”
“Older lady. Fancy. Said she was Mrs. Reeves’ mother.”
Evelyn.
“And a man?”
Pete nodded.
“Your brother.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Last month.”
Michael had been looking for Anna’s secrets before the luncheon.
With the warrant and Rebecca’s authorization, Pete led us to Unit 117.
The key turned smoothly.
Inside was not much.
Three sealed boxes.
A small fireproof safe.
And one framed photograph of me, Anna, and Lily at the beach.
Lily was four, sitting on my shoulders.
Anna was laughing.
I had forgotten that day.
No.
I had buried it because remembering joy hurt.
Rebecca opened the first box.
Medical records.
The second contained trust documents.
The third contained journals.
Anna’s journals.
I touched one, then pulled back.
Detective Collins noticed.
“We may need them as evidence.”
“I know.”
The fireproof safe required a code.
Rebecca looked at the note again.
“Moonlight,” she said.
I entered Lily’s birthday.
Wrong.
Anna’s birthday.
Wrong.
Our wedding date.
Wrong.
Then I remembered the song.
Clair de Lune.
Claude Debussy.
Debussy was born in 1862.
I entered 1862.
The safe opened.
Inside was a flash drive, a stack of notarized statements, and a sealed envelope labeled:
For Lily, when she is old enough to know why.
Beneath it was one more document.
A life insurance policy.
I frowned.
“I already knew about Anna’s policy.”
Rebecca picked it up.
“This isn’t Anna’s.”
She handed it to Detective Collins.
The insured name was not Anna.
It was Lily.
Policy owner: Evelyn Hart.
Beneficiary: Evelyn Hart.
Date opened: Six months before Anna died.
My blood turned to ice.
Detective Collins read the document twice.
May you like
Then she said what none of us wanted to say.
“This may never have been just about the trust.”
