Chapter 8 - MOM LOCKED THE DOOR
Mom locked our apartment door three times that night.
Chain.
Deadbolt.
Chair beneath the knob.
She closed every curtain.
Then she put me in her bed.
I asked if Vincent was bad.
Mom sat beside me.
“I don’t know.”
“People say he is.”
“People say many things.”
“Daddy said it.”
That hurt her.
I could see it.
She looked toward the dark window.
“Yes.”
“Did Daddy lie?”
“No.”
“Does Vincent lie?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the problem.
At four and a half, I thought grown-ups knew which people were good and which were bad.
That night, Mom taught me they usually didn’t.
Her phone rang again.
This time it was the labor attorney.
Angela Brooks.
She had already spoken with Tina and six other employees.
By midnight, eleven workers had joined the complaint.
By morning, there were seventeen.
David sent Mom an email.
TERMINATION FOR JOB ABANDONMENT.
Mom read it twice.
Then deleted it.
At 7:10 a.m., someone knocked.
Mom froze.
I stopped eating cereal.
Another knock.
“Claire Carter?”
A woman’s voice.
“Chicago Police.”
Mom checked through the peephole before opening.
Detective Leah Monroe stood in the hallway.
She was holding a folder.
Mason Reed had been found alive.
He had been struck from behind in the alley.
He had a concussion.
He claimed he remembered nothing.
But detectives found something in his coat.
A storage-unit receipt.
The unit had been rented under Daniel Carter’s name.
Mom sank into a kitchen chair.
“That’s impossible.”
Detective Monroe placed the receipt down.
“The rental fees have been paid every month for five years.”
“By who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Mom stared at the address.
It was on the west side.
“What’s inside?”
“We haven’t opened it.”
“Why?”
“The unit was rented by your husband.”
She slid a form across the table.
“As his surviving spouse, you may have a claim to the contents.”
Mom looked toward me.
Then back at the detective.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
At 1:30, we stood outside Unit 318.
Detective Monroe was there.
Angela Brooks was there.
Vincent was not.
Mom seemed relieved.
The lock was cut.
The metal door rolled upward.
Inside were boxes.
Old tax records.
Computer equipment.
A brown jacket that belonged to my father.
Mom touched it with both hands.
Then I noticed something beneath a folding table.
A red plastic lunchbox.
I recognized it from a photograph.
Daddy used to carry it to work.
Inside was a flash drive.
On the side, in black marker, Daniel had written.
FOR RORY.
Mom stared at me.
I stared at the little drive.
Detective Monroe plugged it into a secure laptop.
One video file appeared.
Daniel Carter sat in front of the camera.
Alive.
Tired.
Terrified.
And the first words he spoke changed everything.
May you like
“Vincent Kane isn’t the man stealing from us.”
“He’s the man Mason is planning to frame.”
