Chapter 9 - My House, His Key
The police reached my house before I did.
David was gone.
The back door was open.
Nothing obvious had been stolen from the living room.
The television was there. Jewelry untouched. Kitchen normal.
But Richard’s study had been searched.
Desk drawers pulled open.
Books removed from shelves.
The small wall safe behind Richard’s framed Navy photograph stood open.
My heart dropped.
“What was in there?” an officer asked.
“Old bonds. Copies of deeds. Richard’s personal letters.”
“Cash?”
“No.”
“What would someone want?”
I knew exactly what David wanted.
The original documents.
He had been looking for something that could beat the blue folder.
Margaret arrived ten minutes later.
We made an inventory.
One thing was missing.
A sealed envelope Richard had marked FOR ELENA ONLY.
I had never opened it.
I had forgotten it existed.
Margaret looked at me like I had lost my mind.
“You never opened a letter your husband specifically left for you?”
“I wasn’t ready.”
“For ten years?”
“I was grieving.”
She softened.
“Fair.”
The officer asked for David’s information.
Then another patrol unit radioed in.
They had located his SUV at a gas station three miles away.
Empty.
Laura called me from a blocked number.
Her voice shook.
“Mom, he knows the police are looking for him.”
“Where are you?”
“At a friend’s.”
“Stay there.”
“He took Richard’s letter.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“You saw it?”
“He showed me.”
“What does it say?”
Laura started crying.
“Mom… it says Dad knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That David had been asking him about the properties before he died.”
I sat down.
Laura continued.
“He wrote that if David ever pressured you about money, you were supposed to call someone named Samuel Ortiz.”
The name hit me like a light turning on in a dark room.
Samuel Ortiz had been Richard’s business partner thirty years earlier.
I had not heard his name in decades.
“Where is David now?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What else was in the letter?”
Laura’s breathing changed.
“Mom…”
“What?”
“There was a second page.”
I waited.
She whispered, “Dad wrote that one of us had already been taking money from you.”
My mouth went dry.
“Which one of you?”
Before Laura could answer, a man shouted in the background.
May you like
Then the call cut off.
