“But none of the keys we’ve found work,” Charlie says.
Bea and I lock eyes.
“Safe deposit boxes,” she says at the same time I blurt, “Both keys must be turned at the same time.”
We grin at each other.
Clearly, we’re on the same wavelength.
“The keys, please, Charlie,” I say to my son. “Bea and I will show you how banks work.”
“I mean, usually safe deposit boxes are lined upinsidethe vault, and you don’t have to do the two-key method to get in exactly like this,” she says.
“Have you worked in a bank? Are you quite sure there’s not double keys for the safe entrance too?”
She shakes her head. “That’s one career I haven’t had, but I’ve been to banks enough. My parents had three safe deposit boxes. I kept finding keys in different places.”
“Three?”
“They had a joint one, and then they both had a secret one they kept from each other where they’d hide nice gifts. Mom’s had this gorgeous pocket watch and front-row tickets for the whole family to go see a hockey game in New York, and Dad’s had the matching earrings to the pearl necklace-and-bracelet set he’d given her the two Christmases before. It was really sweet.”
“But safe deposit boxes?”
“One of my grandpas was a banker before he retired and moved to Arizona. I think he gave them a family discount. You ready with that key?”
“Whenever you are, love.”
Bloody hell.
Ihaveto quit calling her that.
Especially with the way it makes my boys giggle.
“Three, two, one,” she says, not reacting in the least to the pet name, as if men call herloveall the time.
Probably she thinks it’s a British thing.
She wouldn’t be wrong, but she wouldn’t be entirely right, either.
“…andturn,” she says.
I turn my key in the keyhole we’ve located beside the teller counter drawer.
She turns her key in the keyhole on the right side of the safe, where she’s balanced in a squat, knees up, making me think of yoga poses and goats.
There’s a clicking noise, as if something has been unlocked.
“It should’ve opened,” she murmurs. She runs her fingers along the edges of the door again, then gives it a slight push.
“It opened.” Eddie crowds behind her.
“I heard it,” Charlie adds, also crowding behind her.
“Must be a sticky door.” She pushes once, twice, and before I can offer my assistance, she puts her shoulder into it.
The door swings open, into the safe, from hinges above the door.
And Bea follows the door with a gasp, her body propelled inward as though she’s lost her balance.
