“I would rather hear your answer somewhere you cannot be punished for giving it.”
Emily folded her arms.
“Then ask it here.”
A trace of amusement crossed Arthur’s face.
“Your grandmother used to say exactly that.”
Emily stopped breathing for a moment.
“What did you just say?”
Arthur held out his hand toward Simon.
Simon placed a small brass object in it.
Arthur laid the object on the nearest table.
It was a key with a blue thread tied around the head.
“Your grandmother gave me this in 1978,” he said.
“She told me to return it when I found someone in her family willing to listen.”
Martin stared at the key as if it might be worth money.
Emily stared at it because she had seen the same blue thread in her grandmother’s sewing box.
Chapter 4: A Key Without a Door
Emily did not leave with Arthur that night.
She told him she would listen after she had finished her work, and he accepted without argument.
Simon gave her a card with a phone number that connected directly to his office.
Julian described the black sedan waiting outside in case she wanted a ride.
Emily declined the ride because her apartment was ten minutes away on foot.
Martin watched the men depart through the rain.
When the car disappeared, he called Emily into the storage room.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Arthur Bell?”
“I did not know who he was.”
“Arthur Bell financed half the waterfront restoration projects in this state.”
Emily crossed her arms.
“He paid for two eggs.”
“Don’t be clever.”
“You asked me a question.”
Martin moved closer.
“You understand that people like him expect discretion.”
“He asked me to tell the truth.”
“People like him say things they don’t mean.”
Emily looked at the employee schedule taped behind Martin’s shoulder.
He had reduced her hours twice that month, even though she covered shifts whenever somebody called in sick.
She could not afford another reduction.
“I will be discreet about his breakfast,” she said.
Martin interpreted her words as obedience.
She interpreted them as a refusal to give him the information he wanted.
After closing, Emily walked through the cold carrying the brass key in her pocket.
Arthur had allowed her to keep it until they spoke again.
The blue thread was faded, but the knot was the same square knot her grandmother tied around every bundle of sewing needles.
Emily lived above a closed bookstore with her younger brother, Noah.
