Chapter 3 - The Apartment Someone Had Already Entered
I left the Belvedere Club at 11:18 p.m. with a photograph of my mother, copies of three documents, and the terrifying knowledge that someone had been watching my apartment.
Gabriel offered to drive me home.
I refused.
"You're not getting into a stranger's car," I told myself aloud.
Gabriel heard me.
"Reasonable."
He instructed his security driver to call a licensed car service instead.
I paid for it myself.
He didn't argue.
But before I left, he handed me a business card.
"Call me if anything happens."
I looked at the number.
"Do you give every maid your private phone number?"
"No."
"Then why me?"
His expression changed.
"Because I made your mother a promise."
My heart tightened.
"What promise?"
He glanced toward the ballroom.
"That if anything happened to her, I would help you find the truth."
I stared at him.
"You knew my mother was dying?"
"Yes."
"Did you visit her?"
His silence answered.
I stepped backward.
"Then where were you when we couldn't afford her medication?"
Gabriel looked down.
"That is a question I owe you an answer to."
I put the business card into my apron pocket.
"You'd better find one."
Then I left.
The ride to Queens lasted thirty-seven minutes.
I watched every passing car.
Every pedestrian.
Every reflection.
I hated feeling frightened.
I hated that Preston had found another way to make me feel powerless.
At my apartment building, I tipped the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk.
The lobby smelled of burned toast and disinfectant.
Mrs. Donnelly, my elderly neighbor, was sitting near the mailboxes.
She raised her head.
"Alice?"
"Hi, Mrs. D."
She studied me.
"You're home early."
"Long story."
She leaned forward.
"That man came back."
My stomach tightened.
"What man?"
"The handsome one who used to live with you."
Preston.
"When?"
"About an hour ago."
I stared at her.
"Did he go upstairs?"
She nodded.
"Said he'd forgotten something."
I felt sick.
"He doesn't live here anymore."
Mrs. Donnelly's expression changed.
"Oh, honey."
I took the stairs.
Third floor.
My keys shook in my hand.
The apartment door was closed.
But the deadbolt wasn't engaged.
I knew I had locked it.
I always locked it.
I stepped backward and called the building's emergency maintenance number.
Then I called the police.
I didn't go inside.
That was the first smart decision I'd made all evening.
Officers arrived and checked the apartment.
No one was there.
But someone had searched it.
My dresser drawers were open.
My kitchen cabinets had been emptied.
A box of my mother's belongings lay overturned beside the bed.
Her photographs were scattered across the floor.
I knelt beside them.
My mother's wedding picture.
Her nursing-school certificate.
The little birthday cards she had saved from my childhood.
Everything had been disturbed.
A police officer approached.
"Anything missing?"
I looked around.
My laptop remained on the table.
My television was untouched.
Even the small envelope containing my emergency cash was still beneath the mattress.
Then I noticed something.
The blue metal box.
It was gone.
I had kept it beneath my bed for three years.
Inside were my mother's old papers.
Receipts.
Letters.
A few photographs.
And a small notebook she had told me never to throw away.
"My mother's box," I whispered.
The officer asked for a description.
I gave it.
Then I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the empty space beneath it.
Someone had broken into my apartment to steal paperwork.
Not jewelry.
Not money.
Paperwork.
I called Gabriel.
He answered immediately.
"Alice?"
"Someone broke into my apartment."
His voice changed.
"Are you safe?"
"The police are here."
"What was taken?"
"My mother's papers."
A brief silence.
Then he said, "Did she have a blue ledger?"
I froze.
"How did you know?"
Gabriel exhaled.
"Your mother kept records of every payment connected to Harbor House."
"Why?"
"Because she believed someone was diverting money."
I closed my eyes.
"Preston stole it."
"Do you know that?"
"No. But he came here tonight."
"Tell the officers everything."
"I am."
I expected Gabriel to tell me his men would handle it.
Instead, he asked whether I had spoken with a lawyer.
"No."
"Then I can give you several names. Choose whichever you prefer."
That surprised me.
I was beginning to understand that Gabriel Costa wasn't quite what I expected.
But I still didn't trust him.
"Why are you helping me?"
His answer came quietly.
"Because I should have helped your mother."
The following morning, I met an attorney named Miriam Blake.
She was a sixty-one-year-old woman with silver glasses and the expression of someone who had never once been intimidated by an expensive suit.
Gabriel had given me three names.
I chose Miriam because her office had the worst furniture.
It felt reassuring.
She examined the documents.
Asked detailed questions.
And made several phone calls.
Then she looked at me.
"Miss Hayes, your mother's ownership interest appears to have been transferred using an authorization that may be fraudulent."
"Can we stop the sale?"
"We can seek emergency relief, but we need to establish the facts quickly."
"When is the sale?"
"Monday."
I stared.
It was Saturday.
We had two days.
Miriam leaned forward.
"Do you have any original documents?"
I thought about the stolen box.
"No."
"Did your mother ever tell you where she kept copies?"
I closed my eyes.
I remembered her final days.
The hospital.
Her trembling hand.
The way she had asked me to bring her old sewing machine home.
I had thought she was confused.
Then I remembered her words.
Don't let anyone throw away the machine, Alice. Your grandmother would never forgive me.
My eyes opened.
"The sewing machine."
Miriam frowned.
"What?"
"My mother's sewing machine."
I stood so abruptly that the chair scraped against the floor.
"I think she hid something inside it."
Twenty minutes later, Leah—my childhood friend who now managed a storage facility—met me at her warehouse.
My mother's old sewing machine was wrapped in a faded bedsheet.
I pulled it toward me.
Opened the wooden case.
And noticed that the bottom panel had two screws that didn't match.
Leah fetched a screwdriver.
My hands shook as I removed the panel.
Inside was a sealed plastic envelope.
I pulled it out.
May you like
A handwritten message was taped to the front.
ALICE, IF YOU FOUND THIS, THEY ALREADY KNOW.
Related Stories
