Page 52

Cleo

T he brass key pressed against my hip like a brand, burning through denim with the weight of fifteen years of secrets.

Dex's bike ate up miles of back roads I'd never traveled, each curve taking us further from Heavy Kings territory and closer to answers I desperately wanted.

Wind whipped past my helmet, but all I could feel was that small piece of metal promising either salvation or disappointment.

My arms tightened around Dex's waist without conscious thought.

His leather cut smelled so good, grounding me when everything else felt unmoored.

The address from Mr. Friendly's stuffing had led us to Millbrook—a nothing town an hour out, the kind of place people passed through without stopping.

But somewhere in that nothing town sat a bank with a box that held my mother's secrets.

"You okay back there?" Dex's voice crackled through the helmet comm, warm despite the tinny speaker.

I realized my grip had gone white-knuckle tight, probably making it hard for him to breathe. "Just nervous."

"Talk to me." His hand dropped briefly to cover mine where they clasped at his stomach. "What's going through that head?"

"What if the box is empty?" The words tumbled out, giving voice to fears that had kept me awake half the night. "What if Mom moved the money years ago? Used it for medical bills or rent when things got bad?"

The bike leaned into a curve, smooth and controlled. Everything Dex did had that quality—deliberate, purposeful, safe. Even riding at sixty miles an hour, I felt more secure with him than I'd ever felt standing still on my own.

"Then we deal with it," he said simply.

"Or what if this is all some elaborate dead end?" I pressed my helmet against his back, needing the contact. "What if my father made the whole thing up, and Mom never had any money at all?"

"Your mom hid that key for a reason, little one. Whatever's in that box, she wanted you to find it."

He was right. I thought about those last months, how Mom had gotten more secretive, more careful. Locked drawers I wasn't allowed to open. Papers she burned rather than throwing away. I'd thought it was paranoia from the illness. But what if she'd been protecting something?

Farmland blurred past—corn fields and grazing cattle, the kind of pastoral scenes that felt like they belonged in someone else's life.

"There," Dex said, slowing as we approached a sign marking Millbrook's city limits. Population 2,847, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and strangers got noticed.

Main Street looked like a movie set—red brick buildings with brass fixtures, American flags hanging limp in the still air.

The bank sat between a hardware store and a diner, solid and respectable in that small-town way.

First National Bank of Millbrook, established 1887 according to the cornerstone.

Dex parked the bike in front, and my legs shook when I climbed off. Not from the ride, but from what came next. He pulled off his helmet, studying my face with those dark eyes.

"We don't have to do this today," he offered. "Can come back when you're ready."

"I'll never be ready." I pulled off my own helmet, hair sticking to my neck with nervous sweat. "Might as well get it over with."

The bank's interior matched its exterior—all dark wood and brass. It smelled like lemon polish and old paper, institutional in a comforting way. Only two tellers worked the counter, both looking up with professional smiles when we entered.

"Can I help you?" An older woman approached, silver hair swept up in a style that probably hadn't changed since the eighties. Her name tag read "Debra Henderson, Branch Manager."

"We'd like to access a safe deposit box," Dex said, taking point while I tried to remember how breathing worked.

I pulled the key from my pocket, the metal warm from being pressed against my body. My hand shook as I held it out, watching Mrs. Henderson's eyes sharpen with professional interest.

"Oh! This is an old key. It’s for box 347," she confirmed, turning the key over to read the engraved number. "If you'll follow me, please. I'll need to see two forms of ID and get your signature for comparison."

She led us past the teller counter to a heavy door marked "Private Banking." Beyond it, a smaller room with a desk and filing cabinets that probably held decades of town secrets. Debra pulled out a ledger, flipping through pages yellowed with age.

"Box 347," she murmured, running her finger down columns of neat writing. "Ah, here we are. Last accessed . . . my goodness, fifteen years ago."

My heart hammered against my ribs. Fifteen years. Right around when we'd fled, when Mom had packed us up in the middle of the night and run from the monster my father had become.

"I'll need your identification, please."

I fumbled for my wallet, hands clumsy with nerves.

Driver's license, social security card—the thin documents that proved I existed, that I had a right to whatever secrets Mom had hidden.

Debra examined them with the kind of thoroughness that suggested she took her job seriously, then slid a signature card across the desk.

"Sign here, please. We'll compare it to the signature on file."

The pen felt slippery in my grip. I signed my name—Cleo Elizabeth Brown—trying not to think about how many times Mom had signed her own name on documents I'd never seen. When Mrs. Henderson turned the card to compare signatures, I caught a glimpse of the original.

Margaret Anne Brown, in my mother's careful script.

The same handwriting that used to leave notes in my lunch box.

"Have a wonderful day, sweetheart. Love, Mom.

" The same hand that signed report cards and permission slips, that wrote grocery lists in the margins of newspapers we couldn't afford to waste.

"You are down as an authorized signatory. And look—the signatures almost match," Mrs. Henderson announced, though she looked puzzled. "Usually family signatures aren't quite so similar."

Because Mom had taught me to write, patient hours at the kitchen table when I was barely tall enough to see over it.

She'd guided my hand through each letter, her grip gentle but firm.

"Beautiful penmanship is a lady's calling card," she'd say, like we were Victorian nobility instead of broke and running.

"If you'll follow me to the vault."

My legs moved without conscious control, following Debra's sensible shoes down a short hallway. Dex's hand found the small of my back, warm and steadying. The vault door stood open—not dramatic like in movies, just a heavy steel barrier between the world and whatever people needed to hide.

Inside, walls of steel boxes stretched from floor to ceiling. Some small as shoe boxes, others large enough to hold documents or who knew what else. Mrs. Henderson led us to the back corner, producing a second key from her ring.

"Box 347 requires two keys," she explained, inserting hers into the left lock. "Yours goes in the right. Turn them together, please."

The key slid home with a soft click that seemed to echo in my bones. Together, we turned them, and the small door swung open to reveal a metal box longer than I'd expected.

"I'll give you privacy," Mrs. Henderson said, sliding the box free and carrying it to a small viewing room. "Take as long as you need. Just ring the bell when you're finished."

She set the box on a table and left, the door clicking shut with institutional finality. Just me, Dex, and whatever secrets my mother had thought worth hiding for fifteen years.

"Ready?" Dex asked quietly.

I stared at the gray metal box, unremarkable except for what it might contain. Everything I thought I knew about my mother, about our life, about why we'd run—it could all change with what was inside. Or it could be empty, one more disappointment in a life full of them.

"Ready," I lied, and reached for the lid.

It lifted with a soft whisper of metal on metal, and the world tilted sideways.

Money. Neat bundles of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in bank bands, stacked like bricks of possibility I'd never dared imagine. My brain couldn't process what my eyes were seeing—more cash than I'd held in my entire life combined, sitting there like it had been waiting for me.

"Jesus." The word escaped before I could stop it, my hand hovering over the bundles like they might evaporate if I touched them.

"It's real." Dex's voice came from very far away, or maybe my ears had stopped working properly. "Every dollar your father claimed she took."

I picked up one bundle with numb fingers.

The bills felt crisp despite their age, Benjamin Franklin's face staring up at me in duplicate.

The bank band read "$10,000" in faded ink.

Ten thousand dollars in my hand, and there were—I counted quickly—twenty bundles.

Two hundred thousand dollars, exactly what Rattler had demanded.

"She kept it all." My voice sounded strange, hollow. "Fifteen years, through everything, she never touched it."

I thought about the nights we'd eaten ramen for the third day straight. The months we'd lived without heat because the bill was too high. The medications she'd rationed, cutting pills in half to make them last. All while two hundred thousand dollars sat in this box, untouched.

"Look." Dex pointed to the money, and I saw what he meant. The bills weren't random—they'd been organized, sorted. Older bills toward the bottom, newer ones on top, like someone had been converting them over the years to keep them current. Even in secret, even in hiding, Mom had been meticulous.

But it was what lay beneath the money that made my chest tight. Documents in clear plastic sleeves, preserved with the same care as the cash. I set the money aside with shaking hands, revealing the paper trail of my mother's secret life.