“He was hiding it,” my father yelled, pacing frantically. “He must have hidden it, or he was scammed. Did some nurse take it? Did he send it to a Nigerian prince? A man does not just lose $100 million.”
“Elliot lived a very modest life,” Harold said. “Perhaps the rumors of his wealth were exaggerated.”
“Exaggerated my ass,” Darren spat. “I saw the paperwork ten years ago. I saw the press release. $90 million, Harold. 90. You are the lawyer. You handled the sale. Where did it go?”
“I am bound by attorney-client privilege regarding Mr. Quinn’s past transactions,” Harold said, his face impassive. “I have read the will. My duty here is done.”
The room descended into chaos. My parents were screaming at each other. Aunt Kelsey was crying, not for Grandpa, but for the vacation home she thought she was going to buy. Bri was texting furiously, probably updating her followers on the major family tea. I stood frozen. I felt sick. They were vultures picking at a carcass that had no meat, and they were furious about it. Harold Mayes packed up his briefcase. He walked toward the door, but as he passed me, he stopped. He looked at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. His eyes were kind, but searching.
“Ms. Flores,” he said softly, under the noise of my father’s shouting.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Did your grandfather give you anything recently?” he asked. His voice was barely a breath. “Before he passed. Perhaps at Christmas?”
My heart stopped. The key. The velvet box in my nightstand drawer back in Portland. I looked at Harold. I saw knowledge in his eyes. He knew. He knew about the key. He knew about Unit 47B.
I started, my throat dry. If I told him yes, right here, right now, what would happen? Harold would tell my parents. They would demand the key. They would drive to Maple Harbor. They would take whatever was inside. And Grandpa’s test, his final wish, would be over. I would have failed.
“He gave me a hug,” I lied. It was a weak lie, but it was all I had. “And he told me to take care of myself.”
Harold studied my face. He saw the fear. He saw the hesitation. Slowly, he nodded. He was a good man.
“Scarlet,” Harold said. “He cared about you very much. If you find anything else, come and see me at my office. Alone.”
He walked out, leaving me in the shark tank.
The reception afterwards was held at the only bar in town open on a weekday afternoon. My father started drinking whiskey at 2:00. By 4:00, he was belligerent.
“I am telling you,” Paul slurred, slamming his glass down on the sticky wooden table. “Someone stole it. That old man was senile. He probably buried it in the woods or gave it to some charity for wayward cats.”
“We should sue the bank,” Darren muttered. “We should sue the nursing service. Someone took advantage of him.”
“If I find out,” my father stood up, swaying slightly, his finger pointing accusingly at the empty air, “that anyone is hiding his money, I will drag them to court. I will sue them until they are living in a cardboard box. That is my inheritance. That is my money. I waited twenty years for him to die, and I am not walking away with a rotted cabin.”
I shrank into my seat. I felt like the key was burning a hole through the miles, through the walls of my apartment in Portland, signaling its existence to everyone in the room. I waited twenty years for him to die. The words hung in the air, ugly and naked. I could not take it anymore. I slipped out the back door while they were ordering another round.
I drove to the cabin. It was dark now. The electricity had been cut off, apparently; Grandpa had missed the last bill, so the house was freezing. I used the flashlight on my phone to navigate the familiar hallway. It smelled of stale smoke and neglect. It had only been three weeks, but the spirit of the house had died with him. I went up to my old room. I sat on the bed, my breath visible in the beam of the flashlight. I needed to know. I needed to be sure.
I reached into my bag. I had brought it. Of course, I had brought it. I had driven back to Portland the night before, grabbed the velvet box, and driven back up this morning. I could not leave it unguarded. I opened the box. The key glinted in the harsh LED light. 47B. And the paper: 824199.
“What did you do, Grandpa?” I whispered to the empty room. “What did you leave me?”
The wind howled outside, rattling the loose windowpane. It sounded like a warning or a summons. My father’s threat echoed in my head: I will sue them until they are living in a cardboard box. If I opened that storage unit, and if there was money inside—$92 million—I would become the enemy. I would be the target of all that rage, all that greed. My own father would destroy me. My mother would disown me. I would be alone.
But then I remembered Grandpa’s face on the porch. The sadness in his eyes when he talked about how they only visited when they needed a check. You are the only one who comes not for the money, but for the man. He had trusted me. He had chosen me. If I walked away now, if I threw the key into the snow and let the secret die with him, I would be safe. I would keep my family. I would keep my quiet, boring life. But I would also be letting them win. I would be letting them rewrite his history, painting him as a senile fool who lost a fortune rather than a man who outsmarted their greed.
I closed my hand around the key. The metal warmed against my skin. I could not sleep. I lay there in my coat, shivering, listening to the wind whip through the trees. It felt like the house was pushing me out, pushing me toward the town of Maple Harbor, toward the truth. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Before the funeral hangover wore off, before my father woke up and started looking for floorboards to pry up, I would go to Unit 47B. I would open the door, and I would decide whether to burn the world down or let it freeze.
The sun had not yet risen when I slipped out of the cabin. The air inside the house was stale with the smell of spilled whiskey and old timber. My father was snoring on the sofa, one arm dangling off the side, his mouth open in a slack, heavy sleep. My mother was upstairs, likely dreaming of the lawsuit she would file. I moved like a ghost, stepping over the creaky floorboard near the kitchen that I had learned to avoid when I was seven years old. I climbed into my Subaru and turned the key. The engine groaned in the sub-zero temperature before catching. I did not turn on the headlights until I was at the end of the driveway, terrified that the beam would sweep across the living room window and wake them.
I needed to be alone. I needed to see if I was insane or if my grandfather was. The drive to Maple Harbor took forty minutes. The roads were empty, just long ribbons of gray asphalt cutting through walls of black pine and white snow. Maple Harbor was a town that had seen better days, much like Cedar Ridge, but it had an industrial edge to it. I found the address written on the scrap of paper: Northline Storage. It was a fenced-in complex of corrugated metal rows, painted a peeling navy blue. It looked exactly like the kind of place people stored broken jet skis and furniture they were too guilty to throw away.
I punched in the gate code—the first four digits of the number on my paper—and the gate rattled open. I drove slowly down the rows until I found Unit 47B. It was at the end of a long, windswept corridor. I parked the car and stepped out. The wind here smelled of salt from the distant ocean and rust. I took the velvet box out of my pocket. My hands were shaking, not just from the cold. I fit the tarnished key into the padlock. It was stiff. For a second, I thought it wouldn’t turn, that this was the final punchline of the joke. But then I applied pressure, and with a heavy clunk, the shackle popped open. I slid the lock off and grabbed the handle
