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He reversed out and closed the door. For a few seconds, she just stood there, wondering at the quick turnaround. Eventually, her focus settled on the box again. If Figgs had any reason to believe that the contents were dangerous, he wouldn’t let her open it in his private office. She had extra reassurance. Her mother left the box; nothing inside would harm her.
Snagging a letter opener from the desk, she sliced through the tape and lifted the lid, eager to receive the message. Her anticipation dwindled to bewilderment. Money. Four rolls of bills. And a… gun? Why would she need a weapon? Two clips of ammunition were just above it. A gun? Money? Picking up one and then the other, she noticed the small white rectangle beneath.
Her lips parted to help her breathe. On the rectangle, right in the middle, was what appeared to be a single drop of blood. Something was written on top of it. After an anxious swallow, she put down the objects in the box again and slipped her fingertips under the card.
Blood. Why would her mother…?Hades. That was the word. Written in faint pencil, just like the word Pandora on the other card, though that one had been sans blood. Peering closer, she ran a nail across the edge of the bloodstain. Except it wasn’t a stain, it was printed. A single drop of blood printed on the pristine white cardboard. Turning it over to see if it was on the other side, Tess found it was blank of blood. There was no faint pencil there either. Instead, she found a stream of numbers. Two rows. One long, uninterrupted number on the top. Beneath that was another number, separated by two punctuation marks: a comma and hyphen. Why? What did it mean?
So much for answers. Tess exhaled a long breath. Goddamnit. The mystery only got deeper. Maybe there was no end.
SEVEN
WITH HER WARES, TESS got the hell out of the area. Ditching Patrick and then Danny shaped a shameful pattern of behavior. Keeping people at a distance was necessary. For the protection of all parties.
Everyone was temporary.
Everyone except mother and daughter.
Now only daughter.
Tess returned home, got in the shower, and obsessed about the numbers. What did they mean? What did the names mean? Pandora, Hades, they were from Greek mythology. Everybody knew that. Were the names codes or keys to figuring out the numbers?
Her mind wouldn’t stop working at a thousand miles an hour. Time was against her too. Her clients and the nightclub had been understanding about her loss. They wouldn’t understand forever. At least, with regard to her own finances, the box money provided a cushion of time to figure everything out.
Determined to decode what her mom wanted her to know, Tess finished an alteration and gathered everything up. The intention was to stop at the stores to return the adjusted garments and tell them she wasn’t accepting more work. Soon, she’d go back to pick up any remaining checks. Her bartending job would require notice anyway. She’d give it at her next shift the following night.
Whatever the next objective, Anne’s warning loomed large. Soon. Her death didn’t alter that directive. Tess would carry out her mother’s last instruction. Though until she was sure there were no more clues in the area, she wouldn’t go far.
After changing her clothes and slinging the hanging items over her shoulder, Tess grabbed her carpet bag and went into her mother’s room for the letters. Her hand was outstretched, ready to pick up the cosmetics case from next to the bed. Except… it wasn’t there.
She paused, frowning. The book was still there.
Retracing her steps, she’d sat on the floor reading the letters… put the letters in the case, closed it and put it on the book… Hadn’t she?
Dumping everything on the floor, she rushed into her own bedroom. It wasn’t there. The case wasn’t anywhere. It wasn’t downstairs, not in the kitchen or living room, not on her worktable… Where else could it be?
It hadn’t left the house. Couldn’t have. Not by her hand. That chilling idea didn’t bear contemplating.
Going back upstairs, her mom’s backpack was the next stop. Maybe she’d put it back. Unlike her to be so fastidious, but… No, the letters weren’t there. As she shoved the backpack under the bed again, stretching to push it as close to the headboard as possible, a sudden sting of pain shot through her finger.
Blood on her pinkie. “Damn it,” she said, rising on her knees to grab Kleenex from the nightstand.
Squeezing them against the cut, she lay down flat to seek the culprit and expected to see a loose board or nail or something. At first, nothing in the nightstand’s shadow stood out. Still clutching the tissues to her wound, Tess reached out, slowly, searching for what had hurt her. Something cool and hard met her fingertips. What was it?
Kneeling up, she checked it out. An odd object. Metal, heavy for its size, it was the length of her hand. The flat circular piece that rested on the heel of her hand had something embossed on it, two curved shapes facing each other. From that was a short cylinder that split into two long prongs. What was she looking at? A symbol of something. Did it have a purpose?
Her gaze ascended to the book by the bed. The letters were gone. The only explanation… someone had taken them. A stranger. Mom was dead. No one else knew they existed. No, Patrick knew she’d found them, Danny too. The latter got a pass, she’d been with him since telling him.
Suspicion became paranoia. From childhood until that moment, the danger had been an abstract theory. Someone, a stranger, had been in her mother’s bedroom going through her things… the idea made her shiver… it made her nauseous. Was this what her mother had lived with every day? The responsibility of it. The weight pushing her down, holding her back, stifling her.
Nothing else was out of place. As far as she could tell, nothing in her bedroom had been touched. The TV was still there, all the landlord’s furniture. Her sewing machine too and that was an expensive piece of kit. It wasn’t a random burglary.
One other person knew about the letters.
H.
Could it be him? Maybe the author had removed the evidence of his existence.
Whoever had been in the house had got what they wanted. If hurting her was on their agenda, they could’ve hung around and taken her out. If the thief knew about the letters, it stood to reason he could’ve been watching them for a while. He’d know she was a sitting duck.
