“We were so young,” Jo Ellen murmured.
Maggie’s chest tightened. “We were so happy.” Shehadbeen a happier woman then. Always highly disciplined with tight parameters around her life, but before Roger’s arrest and his death, she’d had more joy.
Life forced her to tighten her parameters so much…sometimes she felt like she was strangling herselfandthe people she loved.
Silence fell again as they continued sorting through the remnants of lives that now felt like mysteries. And then—something cold and metallic jabbed Maggie’s fingertips.
Her pulse quickened as she pulled out a small key, attached to a worn tag stamped with the wordsDestin Federal Savings Box 237.
“Jo! Look!”
Jo Ellen pushed up to see. “Is that?—?”
“A key to a safe deposit box,” Maggie confirmed, her voice lilting with intrigue. “Here! In Destin.”
Jo Ellen’s eyes lit up. “That could be something.” She returned to her box and, seconds later, gave a startled gasp. “Oh, my goodness!”
She shoved her hand in the air, an identical key clutched in her fingers. She looked at Maggie, her face alight with both triumph and disbelief.
“What the heck?” Maggie reached to take the key and compare them. Yep. Same bank, same box number.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other and the keys, the magnitude of the discovery settling over them.
“Does that bank still exist? Here in Destin?” Jo Ellen asked.
“As a matter of fact, it does,” Maggie said, handing back Artie’s key. “It’s near Publix. I saw it the other day andremembered that Roger sometimes stopped in there to cash travelers checks before ATMs were everywhere and credit cards were common.”
Jo Ellen’s brows went up. “Maybe they stashed money in this box.”
“I don’t want money,” Maggie whispered. “I want answers.”
And what she really wanted was freedom from promises made thirty years ago.
“And maybe these”—Jo Ellen tapped her key to Maggie’s like they were toasting champagne flutes—“unlock those answers. Let’s go now.”
“Now?” Maggie choked.
“It’s a Thursday afternoon. The bank’ll be open.” She pushed her box with her foot, ready to run.
“Whoa, there,” Maggie said, snagging her sleeve. “They don’t let just anyone walk in and open a safe deposit box. One of us would need ID. Proof that we’re the spouses of the owners. Maybe a death certificate?”
“I have that,” Jo Ellen said. “It’s with the ashes.”
Maggie drew back. “Well, don’t bring those. But get the certificate and our IDs and…whatever else we might need. I guess we’re going clue hunting, Nancy Drew.”
“Woohoo!” Jo Ellen bopped out of the room and suddenly Maggie was transported to the Tri-Delt house when the two of them were young. Oh, how she longed to feel that friendship, free of old guilt and vows she wished she’d never made.
“I still feel bad for lying,”Jo Ellen muttered, adjusting her sunglasses as Maggie steered Vivien’s stupidly oversized SUV through Destin traffic.
Maggie huffed, keeping her eyes on the road. “We didn’t lie. We just wrote a note that said we’re going to Publix to buy…something. We’ll go to Publix. We’ll buy something. But first, we’ll go to the bank.”
Jo Ellen shot her a look, the matching keys clasped in her hands. “Oh, sure, after we crack open our dead husbands’ mutual safe deposit box like a pair of geriatric detectives.”
Maggie allowed herself the faintest smile. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
As they pulled into the modest bank parking lot—a small, nondescript building tucked between a nail salon and a real estate office—Maggie’s heart beat just a little faster.
“Let me handle this, Jo,” Maggie said as they walked toward the bank. “I know how to get people to do what I want.”
