I caught myself with a shake of my head. They were just cookies. A thank you. Nothing more.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
I thought of the bear who’d returned in my dreams at least once a week since I moved here.
Nothing more. I’m not letting you in.
While they baked, I gave the cottage a long overdue tidy up. Dusted, swept up the wood shavings I’d tracked across the house, gave a long-neglected pile of laundry a good washing and hung it up outside to dry, and picked up the orange coat I’d left slung across the old leather wing-back chair last night.
I usually wore it for evening walks, but it was getting too heavy with the warming weather.
I grabbed it to hang in the closet, thinking I’d switch to my old leather jacket. But as I lifted it, I noticed the lining felt thick. Structured.
Wait. Did the coat have a removable liner?
I checked the zipper along the inner seam. It did.
Maybe I could keep using my gift from Noelle then, continue reminding myself that I’d work up the nerve to see her and Holly. Eventually.
With that in mind, I unzipped the liner carefully, working it free from the shell.
A piece of paper fluttered out and landed face-up on the floor.
The room tilted, and cold crawled up my spine when I saw Dennis’s handwriting staring back at me.
24/
new nightmare
BELL
The piece of paper with Dennis’s handwriting stared back at me:
Insurance PolicyBVI: 13lKLL2777NS436
My blood ran cold because I knew Dennis didn’t “believe” in legal insurance. After Noelle’s birth, he’d let me go without, rather than pay extra to continue to put me on his mayoral policy. Further deterrent to me seeking medical care after he hit me. I’d learned to tend to all manner of wounds on my own with the help of the internet.
The handwritten note felt like a coded message. From the grave.
But for what?
Maybe it was nothing. I grasped around for hope. Maybe BVI stood for something innocent—a business name, a safety deposit box for legitimate documents.
But Dennis had never done anything legitimate in his life.
A memory suddenly hit me, like a stab of lightning.
Dennis muttering under his breath after Boone started insistently pounding on my apartment door:“Dammit. The whole point of staying in this crappy apartment was so they wouldn’t know where I lived.”
Then a few minutes later, when Boone barged in, Dennis had yelled,“Who the hell are you?! If the Del Gottis sent you?—”
Why had Dennis wanted to hide his location from the Del Gottis, and why would he have thought they might send someone to hurt him if he was their trusted launderer?
A possible answer to those questions dropped my stomach.
My ex wasn’t just laundering for the Del Gottis, he was using his “trusted” status to embezzle again—this time from the mafia family he was washing money for. A mafia family who would definitely figure out what happened after Dennis stopped reporting to work.
Boone had probably gotten rid of the laptop along with Dennis’s body. That meant I was in possession of the only other link to what had to be a secret bank account.
