On the bed there was a stack of papers.
I recognized the letterhead immediately. Whitmore and Associates, Attorneys at Law. Not Mr. Brennan’s firm. A Post-it note sat on top in Vanessa’s looping handwriting.
Sign here, here, and here.
Voluntary transfer of property to Robert J. Hayes, witnessed by Linda Schultz.
Voluntary.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped in the same spot it had for twenty years, where Daniel used to sit and take off his shoes after work. I could still smell him. Old Spice and the faint peppermint scent of the lozenges he kept in his coat pocket.
My hand went to the key again.
Brass. Small. A number stamped on it.
Daniel had given it to me in the hospital three weeks before the heart attack. He was lucid that day, more lucid than he had been in months.
“Maggie,” he said, gripping my hand. “This opens a box at Manhattan Trust on Forty-Seventh Street. You go there. You don’t tell Robert. You don’t tell anyone. You understand?”
I had nodded. I thought he was confused, medicated, but he made me repeat it back to him.
“Say it.”
