Chapter 8: The Black Key
My father did not answer me at first. He looked at the fireplace, then at his hands, then he reached slowly into the inside pocket of his coat.
"What is that?" I asked.
He held it out on his open palm. "Your mother's."
It was a small black iron key, threaded on a worn green silk cord, frayed where it had been tied and retied. My mother had worn it around her neck every day of my life, and I had not seen it since the week she died four years ago.
"Where did you get that?" I said.
"She gave it to me," he said. "Three days before her surgery."
"My mother took off the key she never took off, gave it to you, and in four years you never once mentioned it."
"No," he said. "I never did."
"Why not?"
"Because she made me promise." His voice dropped. "She said, use it only if something happens to me. Only then. She made me say it back to her, Clara. Twice."
"Something did happen to her," I said. "She died. Or we were told she died. So why am I only seeing this now?"
He closed his fingers around the key, then opened them again. "Because I did not know what it opened," he said. "I told myself that was the reason. For four years I told myself that was the whole reason."
"Was it?"
"No," he said quietly. "It was not."
"Then say it, Dad. Whatever you have been carrying, say it now."
"I did not know what it opened," he said. "Not until tonight. Tonight, for the first time, I think I might. And God help me, Clara, I wish I did not."
"What changed tonight?"
"You came here," he said. "Within an hour you had the complaints, the texts, the money. She always said you would be the one."
"That is not an answer," I said. "What does it open? A door here? A box? A room in this hotel?"
"I believe it opens something in this building," he said. "Something she never showed me."
"She kept it from you, and then she trusted you with the key. Do you hear how that sounds?"
"I hear it," he said. "I have heard it every night for four years."
I reached for the key, and he did not pull away, but before my fingers closed around it, a phone rang.
Not mine. Not his. The ringtone came from Greer's hand, where he still held Derek's confiscated phone.
Greer looked down at the screen. His face changed. "It is Frank Brennan."
My father was on his feet before the second ring finished. "Give it to me," he said.
"No," I said.
"Clara. You do not know what he will say to you."
"Then I should hear it," I said. I held out my hand. "Martin. The phone."
Greer hesitated a fraction too long. Then he set the phone in my palm. The screen lit my hand. FRANK BRENNAN.
I answered and said nothing.
The line hissed.
"Clara," Frank Brennan said.
I said, "Yes."
"You answered the way she would have," he said. "One word, and nothing given away. I hoped you would not come."
"You hoped wrong," I said. "Why did Derek text you that I was here?"
"Because I ordered it," he said. "Months ago. If you ever arrived unannounced, I was to be called at once. Not Greer. Me."
"Why?"
"Because I have dreaded this night," he said. "Listen to me now, because I will not say this twice. Do not leave this hotel with your father."
My eyes went to my father. He had gone very still.
"He is standing right here," I said.
"I know he is," Frank said. "That changes nothing. Thomas is not telling you everything. Some of that was to protect you. Some was to protect himself. He no longer knows the difference."
"Frank," my father said, loud enough for the phone to carry it. "Do not do this."
"I should have done it four years ago," Frank said. "Clara, the photograph of you and Jack outside his school was not sent to me. Thomas received it himself. Directly. And the note attached to it was not a warning about Andrew at all."
"What did it say?" I asked.
For a moment there was only the hiss. Then, softly, he spoke.
"Ask Thomas," he said, "what happened the night your mother died."
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone very slowly, my hand suddenly unsteady tonight. My father had not moved. In his hand, on its green silk cord, the black key turned a little, catching the firelight.
"Dad," I said.
He did not answer.
"My mother did not die during surgery, did she?"