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It’s too bad Caleb underutilized my wide skill set.
I walk confidently out of the garage, running the backstory through my mind in case I’m rejected from seeing the box. I’m hoping all I need is a key, but it’s possible I won’t be allowed access at all because I’m not the one who purchased the box. Which is why I should have brought my lawyer brother.
The bank—I can hardly call it that because it looks more like an executive lounge of some kind—has a security guard. It only reinforces my belief that whatever is in this box is important.
Excitement skitters across my skin in waves as I approach the long cherrywood desk, covering half of the far wall, manned by a single guy in a tweed blazer and spectacles.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he says.
Ooh. I’ve never been “ma’am”-ed before. This is so fun. I barely stop myself from bouncing on my toes.
Control…confidence…confetti…
Oops. Got a little off track there.
I straighten my shoulders, reining in the full power of the woman I’m pretending to be.
“I’m here to check my safety deposit box.” Why did I add an accent? One Regency movie does not a British person make.
The man, whose name tag reads Arnold, types into the computer, all while maintaining eye contact with me. He saw right through that faulty accent.
“Name?” he snaps.
“Amelia Quinn,” I say, keeping up the accent, because I’ve already dug my hole and now I have to die in it.
More typing. More eye contact. How does he do that?
“Identification?”
I pull out my driver’s license and slip it across the desk to him. He takes it and presses it into a machine beside his computer.
I hope I get that back.
Something beeps.
Was that a good beep or a “we’re-going-to-arrest-you-now beep?”
But the man only nods once before disappearing behind a half wall. Five seconds later he returns and beckons for me to follow him. He leads me through a door and down a narrow hallway that takes a sharp right, then pushes open another door.
“Wait here,” he instructs.
I step into the dimly lit room. The walls are covered in lockers. Deposit boxes. There’s a small table in the center of the room made entirely of cement. It looks like an altar, bigger at the bottom, and smaller on top. I stand by it, resting my hand on the smooth surface.
The lights flicker and I yelp. Am I about to be sacrificed? What if they require blood? Bonds by blood? That could be a movie title. No. Blood Bonds. Starring Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon, evil twins forced to fight against each other though they’ve never actually met…where am I going with this?
Focus.
The seconds tick by ridiculously slow as I wait. I’ve never been very good at waiting and it’s testing me. Is that what this is? Some kind of test I have to pass before they allow me to see the box? What did my parents leave here? And why did they choose a bank forty miles out of the city that neither I nor Connor had ever heard of?
I count my breaths because there’s nothing else to count. But now that I’m bringing attention to my inhales and exhales, my body forgets how to complete the natural function and they come faster and faster.
Now I’m hyperventilating.
Arnold appears in the doorway like a spooky magician.
I gasp. Then proceed to choke on the influx of air to my system.
“Are you alright, ma’am?”