The urge to flee the bank smacks me dead between the eyes, as if I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing. As if this money isn’t really mine, and if I don’t rush out of here—now—someone will either take it from me or take me from it.
The thought is ridiculous, of course, but so is not telling your wife about fifty grand. I was going to simply deposit the cash into our checking account, to use it for bills and necessities until the estate was settled, but now . . . I can’t deposit this much money! How could I explain where it came from? I slip a few hundreds from one of the bundles. I’ll deposit a thousand, maybe two. But the rest, I’ll keep here.
Safe.
Only suddenly, I don’t feel so safe anymore. Our credit cards are all but maxed. There’s not enough in our checking account to carry Bella and me for more than a week. Like it or not, I might need this money.
The image of the man on the eleventh fairway flashes in my mind as if he’s a recurrent memory. The cigarette glowing in the black of night . . .
The voice on the phone that night: Listen to your daughter.
And I can’t help thinking that maybe Micah is gone because of this money. Maybe the man with the cigarette knows what happened. Or maybe he wants what I’ve just dropped into my purse.
I have to get out of the Shadowlands. Tonight.
Maybe I’m being ridiculous.
But I can’t take any chances.
We’ll just go up north a few days early. We can stay at a hotel until Shell and Mick arrive. I’m sure Shell will understand. She’s the only one who could possibly fathom the gargantuan crater Micah’s death leaves in my soul. She’s the only one grieving the way I am. Maybe Bella and I can stay at the lake house until I get my head together, until I figure out what to do, and maybe Shell can help me figure things out.
But the money. I can’t talk to anyone about that.
I can’t even tell Shell I found it, if his having it proves he stole from Mick.
If Detective Guidry knew, he might assume Micah was involved in something illegal, whether this money is tied to Mick or not, especially given all the evidence of a fabricated life my husband left in his wake. And I have to admit now that maybe it’s true. If Micah wasn’t working, how did he come across this much cash? And why, if he had this money stashed away, have we fallen behind on our bills?
My hands tremble as I scoop up the other things at the bottom of the box: the insurance policy for my engagement ring, the deed to our Impala and the Explorer I drive, our wills and declaration of trust.
And an eight-by-ten manila envelope, addressed to Micah at our place in Old Town.
“Nini’s hungry.” Elizabella tugs on my coat. “Lollipops.”
“Okay.”
“Pink ones.”
“Of course. Any color you want.”
I drop the rest of the things into my bag and tear open the last envelope.
A deed of title with my name on it slips into my hands, along with a palm tree keychain, on which three keys are hooked.
I own a piece of property.
In Key West, Florida.
What?
“Mommmmmy.”
“Okay, Bella. We’re going.”
I shove the safe-deposit box back into its slot, like a drawer in a morgue.
I’ll deposit a couple thousand, maybe fifteen hundred, get Bella a lollipop, and get out of here, so I can start putting two and two together.
The moment I step out of the vault, however, I catch sight of a man in a suit. He’s perched on one of the leather chairs in the atrium of the lobby—and he’s staring right at me.
Agent Lincoln.
I’m certain of it. I’ll never forget the face of the man who told me my husband is dead.
Something in the way he looks at me and the way he avoids looking at everyone else sends up warning signals. If he wanted to speak with me again—maybe to share the report on Micah’s death—he wouldn’t be here. He’d meet me at my home.
I make a move toward the teller, but Lincoln stands up and takes a step in that direction, too.
His expression . . . accusatory.
“He was in the kitchen,” Bella says.
“Yes.”
What is he doing here? Is he looking to see if I’d take the money? What if Micah stole it and was under investigation? God, suppose they think I’m in on whatever scheme Micah pulled off?
“Loll-ee-pop.”
I imagine agents descending on me, right here in the bank lobby. I can’t let that happen. Not here, not now. And not on the street outside, either.
Or . . .
He was in the kitchen.
What if he’s the man Bella was talking about? My daddy doesn’t know that man in the kitchen.
I scan the area. The bank is crowded. Unless he bowled people over, he wouldn’t be able to get to me if I beelined out the closest door. If I try to stop at the teller, though, he could stop me—or see that I’m carrying a ton of cash. “On second thought,” I say, more to myself than to my daughter, “we’re going home.”
“Lollipop.”
I scoop her into my arms before she has a chance to throw a tantrum, and the look in my eyes must be convincing enough, because she’s instantly silent.
We slip out the side door and into the car.
I don’t see Lincoln exit the bank because we’re already driving away.
Chapter 17
The moment I pull past the gate at the Shadowlands, Bella says, “Nini says you lied. You promised lollipops.”
“Yep.” It’s not my finest mothering moment, but I don’t want to get into this with a figment of my child’s imagination. “I lied.”
It’s a minuscule lie, compared to those her father told by omission.
Then, softening, as I make the turn onto Hidden Creek: “But I might have some gummy bears at home.”
“Okay.”
“But you have to tell me, Bella. The man at the bank. You said he was in the kitchen.”
“He was.”
“When?”
“With Crew and Fendi.”
Okay, so she’s talking about seeing him recently.
“Silly Mommy. He talked to you.”
Notwithstanding running into Lincoln at the bank—and who’s to say he was there to see me at all? Couldn’t his expression have been indicative of regret for the news he’d delivered?—I need to pull myself together before I completely unravel. If he were there on official business, wouldn’t his partner have been with him? Wouldn’t one of them have been waiting at my car for me?
I suppose time will tell. If this money was obtained illegally, they know where to find me.
I pull into the garage and close the door before we get out of the car, so as to avoid any glances from the neighbors, and once Elizabella is settled with some gummy bears, I start to look through the things I found in the safe-deposit box.
I don’t remember discussing the purchase of a house in Key West, but my signature is on the form that gives Micah power of attorney to conduct the transaction without my presence. According to the deed, I own it, free and clear. Just me. Not Micah. I purchased the house four and a half years ago. We’ve been paying property taxes twice a year ever since.
I would have been newly pregnant with Bella at the time and completely preoccupied. It’s possible, I suppose, that Micah slid the form in front of me and asked me to sign it at some point, but I’d think I’d remember buying a house. Especially when we apparently paid nearly $1.3 million—cash—for the place.
Cash!
Elizabella now colors at the table next to me, while I search online for a property deeded to me, on Elizabeth Lane, in Key West.
When the house in question pops up on my laptop screen, my heart nearly stops. I’ve never been to Key West. Elizabella has never been to Key West. But there it is, online—the house she’s been drawing since the last night she spent with her dad.
It’s pale yellow, with arched windows.
I leaf through my daughter’s drawings. Page after page. Yellow house with light-purple flowers in the window boxes.
Bella’s voice in my head. This is the water where the plane is, and over here is the big house.
I stop paging through the stack of drawings when I hit on the red, black, and yellow sketch that looks something like a lighthouse.
I open another window on my laptop screen and search for Key West lighthouse image. While a lighthouse pops up onto the screen, it doesn’t resemble Elizabella’s drawing. It’s pure white, for one thing.