“You expect me to believe that a nurse waited twenty-two years and then sent a stranger to my ranch?”
“I don’t expect you to believe anything until you open the suitcase.”
“Why didn’t she come herself?”
“She was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what she had done.”
A drop of rain struck the dust between them.
Then another.
Margaret opened the gate.
Adrian handed her the suitcase. It was heavier than she expected.
The leather smelled faintly of smoke.
“There’s a three-number lock,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“Eleanor said you would know the combination.”
“I told you, I never knew her.”
“The combination isn’t about her.”
Margaret looked at the lock.
Three empty windows waited above the turning dial.
“What number?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. She said it had to come from you.”
“Then she sent you on a wasted journey.”
Adrian turned toward his truck.
Margaret’s voice stopped him.
“Why are you involved?”
He stood with his back to her.
“For the last eight months, I’ve been helping Eleanor organize her records. She hired me after she learned she was dying.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I used to investigate insurance fraud.”
“Used to?”
“I made enough mistakes to lose my license.”
At least that sounded honest.
He opened the truck door.
“Wait,” Margaret said. “Are you leaving?”
“My instructions were to deliver the suitcase.”
“You drive all this way, tell me a dead nurse knew something about my granddaughter, and now you’re simply driving away?”
Adrian looked toward the darkening road.
“There’s a motel in Cedar Junction. I’ll stay there tonight. My telephone number is inside the suitcase.”
“What happens when I open it?”
“That depends on what you decide to do afterward.”
He climbed into the truck.
Margaret stood beneath the first cold drops of rain, holding the suitcase against her chest.
Adrian started the engine.
Before pulling away, he lowered the window.
“Mrs. Sloan?”
“What?”
“Whatever you find in there, remember that Eleanor was not asking to be forgiven. She only wanted the truth to reach the person from whom it had been stolen.”
The truck rolled away.
Margaret remained at the gate until the dust and rain erased it from view.
The Number Only Hannah Would Remember
The storm reached the ranch before sunset.
Rain struck the roof in hard, uneven bursts. The power flickered twice while Margaret carried the suitcase into the kitchen and placed it on the table.
She did not touch the lock immediately.
Instead, she made coffee.
She filled Jasper’s feed bucket.
She checked every window.
She moved the revolver from the porch to the kitchen counter.
Only then did she sit across from the green suitcase.
Three numbers.
A combination she was supposed to know.
Margaret tried Hannah’s birthday. February 11.
Two, one, one.
The lock did not open.
She tried Grace’s birthday. August 6.
Eight, zero, six.
Nothing.
She tried the address of the old hospital, the number of Hannah’s room and the final three digits of their telephone number from twenty-two years ago.
The lock remained closed.
Rainwater streamed down the windows.
Margaret pressed her palms against the table and closed her eyes.
The night of the fire returned in fragments.
Hannah had been nineteen. Too young to be a mother, everyone had said, though no one had dared say it to her face. The baby’s father had disappeared before Grace was born. Hannah had refused to tell Margaret where he had gone.
Yet the moment she held her daughter, Hannah had seemed older.
Not happier. Not less frightened.
Simply certain.
“She knows my voice,” Hannah had whispered from the hospital bed. “Look, Mom. She turns her head when I speak.”
Grace had been a small, red-faced baby with a cap of dark hair and one hand that refused to remain inside the blanket.
Margaret had held her for eleven minutes.
She knew because the wall clock had read 2:06 when the nurse placed Grace in her arms.
At 2:17, the fire alarm began.
Margaret opened her eyes.
Two seventeen.
Her breath caught.
She turned the lock.
Two.
One.
Seven.
The mechanism clicked.
Margaret pulled her hand away as though the suitcase had become hot.
For several moments, she listened only to the rain.
Then she opened the clasps.
The lid rose slowly.
The first thing she saw was a yellow infant blanket.
Its edges were worn, and one corner carried a small embroidered bird. Margaret recognized it before she touched it.
Hannah had sewn that bird during the final month of her pregnancy. Her stitches had been crooked. Margaret had offered to fix them, but Hannah refused.
“I want Grace to know I made it,” she had said.
Margaret lifted the blanket with both hands.