Chapter 6: What Was in the Safe
He took the stairs fast, Nora behind him.
The east wing study was a room he rarely used — it had been his father's, then briefly a guest room, then reclaimed when he needed somewhere to keep the household documents and a few personal items he hadn't found another place for.
The safe was built into the wall behind a panel.
It wasn't visible unless you knew where to look.
The panel was swung open.
The safe door hung loose.
He stood in front of it and took stock.
The emergency cash — gone.
Not surprising.
A few thousand dollars, replaceable.
The backup drive with the household records — gone.
And the envelope.
The one with the photographs, the letters, and the document he had never scanned, never copied, never trusted to anything digital.
The last things that had come from his wife's hospital room.
The things Lily didn't know existed yet.
The things he had been saving for when she was old enough.
Gone.
He stood very still.
"What was in the envelope?" Nora asked from the doorway.
He didn't answer immediately.
He closed the safe.
He closed the panel.
He turned around.
"Things that belonged to Lily," he said.
Nora's expression changed.
"Darius—"
"She knew exactly what she was taking." His voice was flat.
"She's had access to this room for eleven months.
She knew."
He crossed to the desk and picked up his phone.
He dialed without sitting down.
It rang twice.
A man's voice answered, alert despite the hour.
"Marcus.
I need you tonight." He paused.
"She left the property within the last forty minutes.
She'll have her car, the gray SUV, registered to the household.
She may go to the apartment she kept on Vellier Street — she thinks I don't know about it." Another pause.
"I need everything she took.
And I need the envelope she pulled from the east wing safe.
That is the priority.
That is the only thing that matters tonight."
He ended the call.
Nora stepped into the room.
"Who is Marcus?"
"Someone I should have called eleven months ago."
"A private investigator?"
"Among other things."
Nora moved to the window.
The driveway below was empty now, the motion-sensor lights still on from where the car had pulled out.
"She planned this," Nora said.
"The hair.
The confrontation.
Getting you angry, getting herself thrown out tonight so she could take the safe on her way." She turned.
"She wanted you to react exactly the way you did."
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because the recording was worth more than whatever she took." He set his phone down on the desk.
"She wanted me emotional.
She wanted a scene she could use later — proof of an unstable husband, grounds for a counter-petition, something to negotiate with.
Instead she gave me twenty-six minutes of exactly who she is, on record, in front of my mother." He paused.
"She miscalculated."
"But the envelope—"
"I'll get it back." His jaw tightened.
"I'll get all of it back."
Nora watched him for a moment.
"And if she's already made copies?
If she uses the backup drive?"
"The backup drive has household records.
Bills, insurance, the staff payroll.
Nothing that damages me." He picked up the phone again and looked at the screen.
"But there is one thing on it I didn't expect her to take."
"What?"
He looked up at his mother.
"Lily's medical file.
From the eighteen months before the diagnosis.
From the doctors we saw before we knew what was wrong." He paused.
"And from the period right after.
When we were still figuring out the treatment."
Nora went very still.
"Why would she want that?"
"I don't know yet," he said.
His phone lit up.
A message from Marcus, already:
*Gray SUV parked outside the Vellier Street building.
She's inside.
Not alone.*
He looked at the message for a moment.
Then: *Who is with her?*
The reply came back in under a minute.
*Man.
Mid-forties.
May you like
I've seen him before.
He was at your wedding.*
