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“Jess, fuck. I lost track of time.” I hurriedly replaced a box from where I’d moved it from. “I’m going to get ready at the office. I’ll be there before she starts.”
“Where. Are. You?” Jess demanded, still not happy with my decision to cut my time so short. Neither was I. This obsession with my father’s death and the fucking key we found had almost made me miss this critical night.
I realized one thing as I scoured through the stuff in this unit, seeing the pictures of my life with Dad before he died, Hazel deserved more. My attention should be solely hers, not split between her and my revenge, but after all this time, I wasn’t sure I could give it up, and in the end, she’d suffer from that neglect. And if this lead didn’t contain any new information I’d follow the next until I found what I needed to end this.
“In my old storage unit.”
“And why is that important?”
“Hazel and I found a key in the spine of one of my dad’s books. I remembered what it went to and the damn thing was in storage. I thought it was only going to take a minute.”
On the way to the unit, I’d stopped to buy Hazel flowers and noticed a glass display with various arrangements inside a decorative wooden box. The lid hung open, but the carved flowers on the front had seemed eerily familiar.
When I saw the key dangling from the lock, it hit me. Dad had one, just like it. It was one of the few things I’d kept.
“Jareth. I understand your desire for justice. I do, but tonight is huge. You could’ve waited.” Jess wasn’t typically this understanding.
I let out a grunt of frustration. “I know. I’m a fucking idiot.” I went to the other side of this metal box, working to get myself around this mess. I needed to remove most of this stuff, but not until I found Dad’s box.
“Tick tock, dude. Get out of there and get ready.”
“I’m leaving now. Message me when you get there.”
I hung up and shifted further towards the front of the cluttered space. There was no way I could be late. Killian said they’d play for an hour as a favor to me. He hadn’t been sold on singing with Hazel, even with my assurance that she was good.
As I hurried to the exit, my hip bumped into a box that fell to the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, my hand grazed a larger box underneath the one that fell and hadn’t been shut tight. I ripped the top open when a flash of walnut brown between the openings caught my eye.
Holy shit.
Inside was my father’s wooden chest.
My breath rushed out of me, as badly as I wanted to know what was inside, I needed to get ready. No amount of groveling would make my absence right. I grabbed the box.
“Thank you,” I said to the owner, who locked up the unit as I headed to the car.
I opened the back door to Elias’s disapproving stare. “I know. Take me to the office. I’ll get ready there and will just make it on time.”
As Elias peeled out, my phone rang.
“Ready for Hazel’s performance tonight?” Terri asked.
I rubbed my forehead. “Almost. I was able to get into an old storage unit of mine, and I’m running late. If you get to The Wooden Nickel before me, can you make sure Hazel’s okay?”
“Of course.” He paused. “This isn’t like you. Everything alright?”
I groaned. “I figured out what the key I found went to and thought I’d have enough time to comb through the boxes to find it.” I was such a fucking moron. I wasn’t late to anything unless it was done on purpose as a power move. Today though, my obsession was overriding my better judgment.
“Did you find whatever it was?” he asked, a strange flatness to his tone.
“A box. I vaguely remember Dad using it. It’s been in storage for close to twenty years.”
“Did you look inside yet?”
“I have a few minutes before I get to the office. I’ll try to go through what I can before then. Otherwise, it’ll have to wait until tonight.” I popped open the lid. The faint squeak echoed through the car. “It looks like some paperwork, mail, and notebooks.”
Silence fell over the line.
“Bill mentioned this brown notebook when we met.” I lifted out the notebook and started flipping through the pages.
