Chapter 2 - The Lockbox Under My Bed
“What are you doing?”
My voice barely carried across the room.
Brandon stood too quickly and stumbled backward.
“Nicole, listen—”
“No.”
I leaned against the doorframe.
“Don't start with ‘listen.’ Tell me why there's a crowbar next to my safe.”
Kayla wiped her face.
“I can explain.”
“You?”
That hurt more than I expected.
My little sister.
The woman I had defended through two bad relationships, three job changes, and one period when she had lived on my couch for four months without paying a dime.
“Why are you here?”
Kayla stared at the carpet.
Behind me, Lily squeezed my hand.
Then she whispered, “Mom, her car has been here almost every day.”
I turned.
“What?”
“She came after Grandma left for the hospital. Brandon kept telling me she was helping with the apartment.”
Brandon's eyes flashed toward Lily.
“You shouldn't be involved in this.”
My daughter stiffened.
I had never heard him speak to her that way.
“Don't talk to her,” I said.
“Nicole—”
“Don't.”
I looked at the documents on the floor.
There were envelopes from three credit-card companies.
Past-due notices.
A certified letter.
Something from an attorney.
Something from the municipal traffic division.
And beneath Brandon's knee was a document carrying my signature.
Except I hadn't signed it.
I slowly bent down.
Pain stabbed through my chest.
Lily immediately reached for me.
“Mom, don't.”
“I need that paper.”
She picked it up instead.
It was an application for a home-equity line of credit.
Against my apartment.
The apartment my father had helped me buy before he died.
My name appeared at the bottom.
The signature was a bad imitation.
My hands began trembling.
“You forged my name.”
Brandon shook his head.
“We hadn't submitted it.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“It wasn't final.”
“You forged my name.”
Kayla started crying.
“Nicole, please.”
Then I noticed the certified letter.
I picked it up.
And for several seconds, the words refused to make sense.
Municipal Traffic Division.
Vehicle identification.
Traffic-camera evidence.
Hit-and-run investigation.
The license plate belonged to Kayla's sedan.
My body went cold.
I looked at her.
She covered her mouth.
“Kayla?”
She shook her head.
“I'm sorry.”
“Why is your license plate in a letter about my accident?”
No answer.
“Kayla.”
Brandon stepped between us.
“It was an accident.”
I stared at him.
The room seemed to tilt.
“What was an accident?”
Nobody spoke.
Then Lily did.
“Aunt Kayla's car has damage on the front passenger side.”
My sister collapsed onto the mattress.
“No.”
The word left me as a whisper.
Kayla sobbed.
“I didn't know it was you.”
The truth entered the room quietly.
No explosion.
No dramatic music.
Just six words.
“I didn't know it was you.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Brandon moved toward me.
“Nicole—”
“Stay away.”
He stopped.
Kayla began talking quickly.
She had attended a party.
She had been drinking.
She had been upset after arguing with someone.
She shouldn't have driven.
She knew that.
She kept repeating that part.
“I shouldn't have driven.”
At Elmhurst and Grant, she had looked down for a second.
Maybe at her phone.
Maybe at the navigation screen.
She couldn't even remember.
The light had already changed.
Then there was an impact.
She panicked.
She drove away.
“I swear I didn't know it was you.”
I stared at her.
“You left me in the street.”
Her face twisted.
“I panicked.”
“You left a human being in the street.”
“I know.”
“And then you found out it was me?”
She looked toward Brandon.
That was the moment another piece clicked into place.
“How?”
Brandon answered.
“I saw the news post.”
“And?”
He hesitated.
“Kayla called me.”
“When?”
Silence.
“When, Brandon?”
“The same night.”
My stomach turned.
The same night he came to the ICU.
That was why he had asked about my memory.
That was why he had stared at the doctor when she said I might never remember.
He hadn't been worried about me.
He had been gathering information.
“You came to my hospital room to find out whether I remembered Kayla's car.”
His expression collapsed.
“Nicole, that's not fair.”
I actually laughed.
A tiny sound that sent agony through my ribs.
“Not fair?”
“I was scared.”
“For who?”
He couldn't answer.
The doorbell rang downstairs.
Brandon froze.
Kayla looked toward him.
And that glance—small, immediate, practiced—told me they had been working together far more closely than either wanted to admit.
Lily whispered, “Mom.”
I reached into my coat pocket.
My phone was already connected.
911.
I had called before climbing the stairs because Lily's face had scared me enough to trust instinct over explanation.
The dispatcher was still listening.
Brandon saw the screen.
His entire expression changed.
“You called the police?”
“Yes.”
“Nicole!”
“Stay where you are.”
“Do you have any idea what you're doing?”
“Yes.”
He stepped forward.
Lily moved between us.
That stopped him.
Downstairs, someone knocked hard.
“Police!”
Kayla crumpled.
“Oh God.”
Brandon whispered something I would remember for years.
“You're destroying your own family.”
I looked straight at him.
“No. I'm finally seeing what my family did to me.”
Two officers entered.
Behind them came Detective Marcus Hale from the traffic division.
His gaze traveled around the room.
The safe.
The crowbar.
The documents.
Brandon.
Kayla.
Then me.
“Ms. Carter?”
“Yes.”
He held up identification.
“We've been trying to reach you since this morning.”
He looked at the letter in my hand.
“It appears you may have just answered several questions for us.”
Kayla started screaming when the handcuffs came out.
Brandon tried to explain.
Neither explanation mattered.
One officer searched him before taking him downstairs.
From the inside pocket of his jacket, she removed a folded document.
My father's deed.
I stared at it.
He had actually put it in his coat.
He had intended to leave with it.
Brandon looked at me.
For the first time since I had come home, his face held something other than panic.
Resentment.
“You could have handled this privately.”
I said nothing.
He was led away.
Kayla followed, sobbing my name.
At the bottom of the stairs, she turned.
“Nicole, please! I'm your sister!”
I gripped the railing.
“You should have remembered that when I was lying in the road.”
The police car door closed behind her.
Silence settled over the apartment.
Lily stood beside me.
Detective Hale remained upstairs, photographing evidence.
Mom arrived twenty minutes later.
She took one look at the bedroom and sat down.
“Oh my God.”
That evening, after investigators finally left, I thought the worst truth had already been uncovered.
I was wrong.
Detective Hale called me shortly after nine.
“Nicole, we finished an initial review of the documents recovered from your apartment.”
My heart sank.
“What did you find?”
“There are financial records we need to discuss.”
“How bad?”
He hesitated.
“Your fiancé wasn't only trying to access the lockbox.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What else did he do?”
“We found evidence that someone has been moving money out of accounts connected to you for almost eight months.”
Eight months.
Long before the accident.
Long before Kayla hit me.
And suddenly the question wasn't why Brandon had betrayed me after I entered the ICU.
May you like
It was how long he had been planning to betray me before I ever stepped into that crosswalk.
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