Elena listened intently as he explained what he’d learned about Sam and the Cranberry Cove from his ex-wife. He knew it wasn’t enough for her to build a case. But after he finished, she touched his hand and asked, “Do you want to let Bethany come over often? For your son?”
James was surprised at the empathy echoing from Elena’s eyes. “Maybe I do,” he confessed. “Is that wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong about it,” Elena said. “You know better than I do how grief works.”
“I don’t think anyone really understands it,” he said.
Elena and James sat on the sofa with glasses of wine and watched the snow sputter down in great white bursts. James had read that they were going to get more than a foot tonight. Elena was thrilled. “I want a White Christmas,” she said. “I’ll stand for nothing less.”
For a little while, all they did was kiss, glowing in the Christmas lights. James felt dizzy with wine.
Right before they fell asleep on the sofa, Elena showed him another photograph—this one of a string of numbers she couldn’t comprehend. James looked through his slitted eyes.
“What do you think it’s for?” she asked, explaining that she’d found the numbers taped under her mother and grandmother’s old newsroom desk. “It can’t be a phone number. It can’t be a password. What?”
As James studied the numbers, a memory sprang to his mind: his mother and a line of little silver mailboxes. He remembered keys and the smell of metal.
“Could it be a safety deposit box?” he asked, handing back Elena’s phone.
Elena sat bolt straight and blinked at him with surprise. And then, she flung forward, covering his face with kisses. “You’re a genius, James,” she said. “I don’t know why I didn’t ask you before!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elena didn’t waste a moment before opening the safety deposit box. It was eight in the morning on the next day, a Saturday, when the teller handed over the key and said, under her breath, that the safety deposit box hadn’t been opened since 1960—sixty-five years ago. Elena nearly collapsed with wonder. She felt she’d just encountered a secret treasure.
Elena was left in the room alone to unlock the box and remove its contents. Inside were three envelopes: one addressed to Rosa’s husband, one addressed to baby Carmen, and another addressed toThe Millbrook Gazette. Elena shook violently. Unsure how to proceed, she carefully placed the envelopes into her bag, relocked the safety deposit box, and returned the key. Walking swiftly from the post office, she felt exposed and strange, carrying such vital documents. She decided to go to the newsroom, which she knew would be bustling in preparation for the big-time Sunday paper. She could disappear into the chaos.
Elena hurried to her office, locked the door behind her (perhaps foolishly), and used a letter opener to remove the documents addressed toThe Millbrook Gazette.
The envelope contained a short note from Rosa Tompkins.
My beloved paper,
I’ve spent the better part of three years uncovering a massive scandal at the heart of Millbrook and our surrounding counties. Unfortunately, I’m in too deep. I discovered that several people I love and care about, several people who are responsible for making Millbrook what it is today, are also responsible for said corruption. Find in this envelope proof of everything I’ve discovered, as well as additional evidence that the houses on Cranberry Cove were built without proper permits and illegally.
Please forgive me for my disappearance. I am frightened for my family. I am frightened for myself.
Yours, Rosa Tompkins
Elena read and reread the letter, then tore through Rosa’s research: paperwork, photographs, contracts, and additional letters, all of which proved what Natalie had proven in Connersville. Millbrook had been and presumably still was a rat’s nest of corruption. Money was exchanged on all levels to ensure that heads turned the other way when needed.
Her grandmother’s journalistic work was impeccable and sleek. But, if what Rosa said was true, the very work she’d treasured had been instrumental in her downfall. Please forgive me for my disappearance, she’d written. Did that mean that someone from Cranberry Cove had chased her out of town? Threatened her in some way? Elena’s thoughts ran in circles.
Eventually, she ran to get Natalie for a second opinion. When Natalie looked through everything, she burst into tears. “She was a brilliant journalist!” she cried. “But she wasn’t strong enough to face them.”
“But why would she join them?” Elena asked, at a loss.
Natalie fiddled with the two other envelopes, one addressed to Carmen, the other to Elena’s grandfather. “Maybe these will answer your questions?”
But Elena was frightened to open envelopes that didn’t belong to her. “I’ll take them to my mother,” she said, because it was all she could think to do. She hoped Carmen was up for it —up for reading something so emotionally taxing. There was no telling these days. Sometimes she was up, and sometimes she was down.
Elena walked back home through the frigid wind, crunching through newly fallen snow. She felt an urgent desire to call James, but she knew he was holding a grief therapy session and couldn’t make space for her right now, no matter how much he might want to. Other people needed him.
And she could handle this herself.
Once back in her mother’s living room, she found Carmen and Jemma playing cards and laughing together.
“I win again!” Carmen cried, shimmying her shoulders.
