Chapter 9 - The Token
The bank blocked the login.
Then traced it.
Not to Carol’s condo.
To a hotel near the airport.
Police arrived after the person had left.
The room was booked under Eric Voss’s name.
Inside the trash they found a torn shipping envelope from the bank.
Carol’s address underneath.
Brooke called Mark that evening.
“Eric is blaming us.”
Mark put her on speaker.
“Should he?”
“He stole from Dad.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Brooke breathed hard.
“He said he could move money temporarily.”
“Using Rachel’s identity?”
“I didn’t know he would do that.”
“Then how did he get my trustee information?”
“Brooke?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep losing knowledge at convenient moments.”
“Mark, your sister is terrified.”
“So is my daughter.”
“This is not the same.”
“No. Lily is eight.”
Finally Mark asked:
“Did you receive Rachel’s bank token?”
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Brooke said it was part of estate paperwork.”
“And you believed her?”
“I didn’t ask.”
That answer mattered.
Carol had accepted a device in my name.
She gave it to Brooke.
Brooke gave it to Eric.
The chain was forming.
Then Mark asked about the green-box documents.
Carol said:
“I burned some.”
I felt the room tilt.
“What?”
“I didn’t know what they were.”
“You burned documents from your dead husband’s estate without reading them?”
“I was upset.”
Mark’s face went blank.
“Which documents?”
“I don’t remember.”
Then she said one more thing.
“There was a letter to Rachel.”
Thomas had written to me?
“When?”
“Before he died.”
“Where is it?”
“I burned it.”
Mark stared at the phone.
“Why?”
Carol whispered:
“Because he told her not to trust us.”
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then Lily appeared in the doorway holding an old birthday card.
“Mom?”
“What, baby?”
“Grandpa gave me this.”
Inside the card was a tiny brass key taped behind the paper.
May you like
And written beneath it in Thomas’s handwriting were four words.
FOR THE LAKE LOCKER.
