Chapter 4
The woman’s name was Evelyn.
Audrey let her into the house but did not embrace her. I could see fourteen years of questions in the space between them.
“Why are you here now?” Audrey asked.
“Because Sienna called me from St. Agnes this afternoon. She said Daniel knew about the box.”
“You could have called me.”
“I tried. You were getting married.”
“That didn’t stop him.”
Evelyn accepted the words without defending herself. She set her canvas bag on the table and took out a photograph of two girls sitting beside a woman with Audrey’s eyes.
“My sister,” she said quietly. “Your mother.”
Audrey glanced at it, then looked away.
Julian brought Evelyn a chair. I called the officer to tell him she had arrived. He asked her to remain available for an interview and confirmed that police were still at the storage facility.
Evelyn listened to me speak. When I ended the call, she said, “Daniel wants what Marianne left behind.”
“What is in the box?” Julian asked.
“Proof that Sienna’s care money belongs to Sienna.”
Audrey gripped the back of a chair.
“There was money?”
“Your grandfather set up an account for her when she was born. Marianne was supposed to manage it until Sienna became an adult. After Marianne died, Daniel took control.”
Audrey shook her head.
“He told us Grandpa left debts.”
“I know what he told you.”
Evelyn opened her bag again and brought out a letter, old and worn at the folds. She handed it to Audrey.
I watched Audrey read. Her lips moved over a sentence near the bottom.
“She asked you to protect us,” Audrey said.
“She did. I tried to visit after the funeral. Daniel wouldn’t let me inside. I should have kept trying.”
For the first time, Evelyn’s voice broke.
Audrey set the letter down.
“Why didn’t you go to someone?”
“I did. I told a lawyer what Marianne had written about the account. Daniel said I was angry because Marianne had left me nothing. I had no records to prove otherwise.”
Sienna had found those records. That was why Daniel wanted the box.
Julian pulled out the chair beside Audrey.
“I should have listened to you tonight,” he said.
She remained standing.
“You can help me now.”
“I will.”
At four in the morning, the officer called again. The unit was registered under Sienna’s name. Inside was a wooden box, but its lid was open and it was empty.
“He got there first,” Audrey whispered.
“Maybe,” the officer said. “The manager says someone entered the building yesterday afternoon using Sienna’s access code. We’re checking the footage.”
Evelyn stood.
“Sienna moved it.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Marianne taught her to make a decoy when she was little. She would leave an empty box where her birthday gifts were supposed to be and hide them under the bed.”
I pictured the unfinished puzzle at St. Agnes. Sienna had left us a path she knew we could follow. Maybe the empty box was another step.
“The key in her coat opened the locker,” I said. “The address led to the empty box. What did she expect us to see there?”
“The box itself,” Audrey said.
We asked the officer to photograph it before moving anything. He sent Audrey several pictures. The box was dark wood with a carved bird on the lid. In one image, I noticed a bright scrape beneath the clasp.
Richard enlarged it.
“Something’s stuck there.”
The officer checked. A slim piece of paper had been folded into a crack in the wood. It held a single word.
HOME.
Evelyn stared at it.
“Marianne used to say that was the only place she could think clearly.”
Audrey looked at her.
“Which home?”
“The house where you grew up,” Evelyn said.
“Dad sold it years ago.”
“Then perhaps the home she meant was mine.”
Evelyn lived outside Oakhaven Springs in a small cottage. Audrey had never been there, but Marianne had taken her children there when they were very young. Sienna might have remembered it from Evelyn’s photographs or from something their mother had left.
The officer urged us to wait for a patrol car. By dawn, one followed us to the cottage.
Evelyn unlocked the door. The rooms smelled faintly of coffee and cedar. Family photographs lined the mantel, including pictures of Audrey and Sienna as children. Audrey lifted one, startled.
“Mom sent these?”
“Every year,” Evelyn said. “Until she died.”
I saw Audrey’s face soften, then close again. There was no time to sort through what the photograph meant.
We searched the house with Evelyn’s permission. The officer checked the doors and windows. Julian looked in the shed. Audrey went straight to the small bedroom where Marianne used to sleep when she visited.
Above the bed hung a framed picture of a white house beneath a blue sky. The frame sat crooked.
Audrey straightened it. A folded envelope slipped from behind it.
She opened it and found a recent photograph of Sienna standing beside the cottage door. On the back, Sienna had written, For the person who remembers where Mom felt at home.
Evelyn sat down on the bed.
“I took this when she visited me last month.”
“You’ve been seeing her?” Audrey asked.
“Sienna asked me not to tell you until she was ready. She wanted to bring you here herself.”
Audrey looked at the photograph again.
“So she trusts you.”
“I hope she does.”
A soft sound came from beneath the bed. Julian crouched and pulled out a cloth bag. Inside lay a smaller wooden box, carved with the same bird.
Audrey reached for it.
Before she could lift the lid, my phone rang.
It was Richard. He had stayed at our house to meet an officer who wanted to check Sienna’s note.
“Clara,” he said, “Daniel just called the landline.”
I stepped into the hall.
May you like
“What did he say?”
“He wants Audrey to bring the box to him. He says Sienna is with him, and he’ll call back in ten minutes with a place.”
