Chapter 16 - The Vault
First Harbor Bank smelled like lemon furniture polish, old paper, and generational money. Dana Wilkes, looking severe in a navy pantsuit, escorted us immediately into a highly secure, private viewing room deep within the vault.
Mr. Pierce sat to my left. The sheriff’s deputy stood firmly near the closed door because Richard had stubbornly insisted on following us into the bank, and Mr. Pierce had aggressively insisted on law enforcement witnessing every single second of the interaction.
Vanessa had tagged along too, sniffing pitifully into a tissue. She desperately wanted to be in the room to watch me lose.
Richard’s personal attorney, a painfully thin man named Caldwell, arrived breathless with a leather briefcase, projecting the manufactured confidence of someone paid entirely too much to look unimpressed.
“This is highly irregular and legally dubious,” Caldwell announced the moment he walked in.
“So is attempting to drill into a dead woman’s safe deposit box three times before probate has even opened,” Mr. Pierce replied without looking up.
Dana Wilkes placed the heavy, elongated metal safe deposit box onto the center of the polished table. My hands were remarkably steady as I inserted the brass key into the lock. I turned it. A heavy mechanical clack echoed in the small room.
I lifted the lid.
Inside the velvet-lined box were four distinct items. A thick stack of old, yellowing letters tied in the same faded blue ribbon. A modern black flash drive. A large, heavily sealed envelope stamped by a genetic laboratory. And a single, framed photograph resting face down.
Vanessa immediately lunged across the table, reaching for the photograph.
I moved much faster, slapping my hand down hard over the frame. “Don’t touch it.”
May you like
Her eyes burned with entitlement. “That could be a picture of me. That could be mine.”
“No,” I said, slowly turning the photograph over and staring at the image. “It couldn’t.”
