things had turned out differently. She hoped work had kept him too busy for that. Or maybe he’d moved on, as her mother had, and found someone new with which to share his life. But he’d never remarried and not once had he mentioned another woman to Emily. Just another sad truth to add to the growing stack that represented her old life here.
Back downstairs, she took her bag to her father’s room, opting to sleep there while she was in town. She picked up his pillow and inhaled deeply of his essence.
He’d been lost to her for so long that the impact of his death hadn’t fully sunk in. It was as if he would walk through the door after his shift ended and all would be the same. But that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she should have identified his body in an effort to force the reality past the barrier of natural denial.
She’d come back to Chicago to plan his funeral, to take care of his final arrangements and his estate. Her mother had refused to come. To her, Carter Hastings had died the same year her son had died.
Emily tossed the pillow aside and decided a hot cup of tea would help get her started. She’d called the law office where she worked this morning to tell them she was taking two weeks off to settle her father’s estate. Her bosses had understood.
She’d gone to college and gotten a degree in journalism in hopes of becoming a Nobel Prize-winning author, but it hadn’t panned out yet. What did a hopeful journalist do when she couldn’t get work in her field? She became a secretary. She could type and file and answer the phone; it was a no-brainer.
After a soothing cup of her father’s longtime favorite, Earl Grey, Emily got to work. Her first chore was to go through her father’s official papers and determine what insurance policies were in effect. Someone from Chicago PD’s human resources department would touch base with her on whatever benefits would be forthcoming.
By the time dusk fell over the neighborhood, she had contacted the funeral home where her brother had been taken all those years ago and made preliminary arrangements. Barring any unforeseen obstacles, a service would be held Thursday afternoon at two. The wife of her father’s partner had called and insisted on having Emily for dinner that evening. She’d almost declined but hadn’t wanted to hurt any feelings. The partner her father had served with the past several years was not the one he’d had when she was a kid. She didn’t really know what had become of his first partner. Emily had vaguely recalled her father mentioning his first partner had died, but she really wasn’t sure
With all she could accomplish today done, Emily shuffled the papers and policies back into neat little stacks and prepared to put them back into the briefcase-size fireproof safe box her father had kept them in. He’d mailed her a key and the location of the safe box years ago. Foolishly she’d kept the key on the charm bracelet he’d given her the Christmas before the divorce. And, even more foolishly, she still wore the damned thing. It was the one part of the past she’d clung to…the single part she hadn’t been able to give up. Unlike her mother, Emily had still loved her father, still cherished the memories of the family they had once been so very long ago.
In the process of lugging the heavy fireproof box back into the closet to tuck it back into its hiding place behind the shoeboxes of photos and other family mementos, something shifted inside.
Not the papers or policies. This was something heavier, something she hadn’t noticed or heard before.
Curious, she hauled the load to the bed and reopened it. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The papers were no longer in their neat little stacks, but that was to be expected since shifting the box into its hiding place required standing it on end. Then she noticed the difference. One side of the bottom appeared to jut up a little higher than the other.
Emily pressed down on the uneven bottom, but it didn’t budge. She removed the papers and set them aside, then hefted the box to an upside-down position and watched the interior floor fall onto the mattress. A bundle of yellow-tinged envelopes flopped onto the metal plate now lying on the covers.
Emily pushed the box upright once more and considered that she’d heard of, even seen, false bottoms. She just hadn’t expected to find her father harboring something like this in his bedroom closet.
She picked up the stack of bundled envelopes and read the addressee’s name. James Colby. She frowned. Who was James Colby? She looked at the date and was startled again. The envelope was postmarked over eighteen years ago. Strange.
Emily skimmed through the rest of the letters and noted the same names each time—Madelyn Rutland and James Colby. One was even addressed to a Victoria Colby but had never been processed through the post office. Or, at least, she presumed so, since there was no postmark on the envelope. Madelyn Rutland was a name Emily recognized. Madelyn had been her father’s first partner when he’d moved from beat cop to homicide detective. But James Colby was unknown to Emily, as was Victoria Colby.
Why on earth would her father have kept someone else’s letters?
Too tired and emotionally drained to ponder the question any longer, Emily replaced the false bottom and stacked all the papers, including the bundle of letters, inside the safe box. There were probably lots more things she would discover among her father’s belongings that didn’t make sense to her. After all, it had been many years since she’d lived in this house or been a significant part of his life.
Everyone had their secrets, but her father had always been a straightforward kind of guy. She couldn’t imagine him having any deep, dark secrets that would hurt anyone or even disrupt anyone’s life.
A bunch of old letters addressed to people she didn’t even know was the last thing she needed to worry about right now. Her father was dead.
She had to do right by him. Taking care of his affairs was the last thing she could do for him; that task had to be her main focus.
What possible difference could letters nearly two decades old make now?
CHAPTER SIX
FIVE O’CLOCK HAD come and gone before Victoria had found time to review the day’s Tribune. Some days were like that, one meeting or conference call after the other. She didn’t actually mind. The flurry of activity meant that the Colby Agency continued to thrive. Victoria had worked hard for nearly two decades to carry on what her husband had started. Having her son returned to her last year had made all the hard work and sacrifice worth it.
She had kept alive the legacy of Jim’s father. Jim would carry on with the same.
Victoria’s brow furrowed with remembered worry. Jim hadn’t come in today. He usually called when he planned to take a day off. But today he hadn’t. She hadn’t heard from Tasha, either.
Months and months of therapy had brought a semblance of normalcy to Jim’s life. He’d adjusted extremely well, in Victoria’s opinion. But it was hard work and there had been times during the past year when failure had loomed. Somehow her son, showing the true strength he’d inherited from his father, had overcome his weaknesses and the extensive brainwashing he’d suffered.
Victoria pressed the intercom button. “Mildred, would you see if you can reach Jim or Tasha for me, please?”
“Certainly, Victoria.”
Victoria stared at the silent intercom for a time after she’d instructed her personal secretary to make the call. That was another part of the past that was over now. Mildred and her niece, Angel, had been saved from the evil the Colbys’ archnemesis had wielded.
Leberman.
