Chapter 2 - The Locked Drawer
On Monday morning, the heat in Brumley was already thick enough to chew by eight o'clock. Drury Hardscape and Snow operated out of a metal pole barn on Mill Road, surrounded by pallets of Pennsylvania bluestone and heaps of crushed gravel. Easton wasn't due until ten, and Jarrett was out with the backhoe crew on a commercial project across the county line.
I drove my ten-year-old Buick up the gravel drive, parking behind Shauna’s gleaming white SUV. Through the tinted window of the front office, I could see my daughter behind her mahogany desk, a headset tucked into her hair, sorting invoices between sips of an iced latte.
I walked in without knocking, the little brass bell above the door chiming softly. Shauna jumped, nearly knocking over her drink, before pressing the mute button on her headset.
"Mom?" Her eyes darted toward the clock on the wall, confusion flickering across her features. "What are you doing here? Is everything okay with the house?"
"Brought you some blueberry scones from Petri’s," I said evenly, setting the brown bakery box on her desk. "And I thought I'd drop off those revised grading specs Jarrett asked about last week. For the lakeside retaining wall."
Her posture relaxed immediately. That was the magic of playing the role they had written for me: as long as I was offering services, food, or money, their defenses never engaged. "Oh, thank heaven. Jarrett was stressing about the drainage inspector coming tomorrow. Sit down, sit down. Let me pour you some coffee."
"Take your time," I murmured, watching her step into the breakroom down the narrow hallway. The second the door clicked shut behind her, my gaze landed on the gray metal filing cabinet beside her desk.
The middle drawer had a small brass lock on the corner, but the brass cylinder sat cocked at a twenty-degree angle—Easton had mentioned that the latch was sticking, and Shauna kept the key tucked inside an empty ceramic pen cup beside her keyboard. My hand moved without shaking. I reached into the cup, pulled the silver key, slid it into the lock, and turned it.
The drawer slid open on greased ball bearings with a faint metallic scrape.
Right behind the alphabetized vendor folders sat an olive-green hanging file labeled in black permanent marker: CH - 1099 / CONSULTING.
I pulled the file out and opened it flat on the desk blotter. My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Inside were two years of neatly collated paperwork. Form W-9 filled out in Shauna’s rounded, sloping handwriting, bearing my Social Security number, my date of birth, and my signature—forged with a careful, trembling imitation of my handwriting that Orin had once joked looked like chicken scratch. Beneath the W-9 were photocopies of monthly Drury Hardscape checks made out to Cassia Hallstead Consulting for exactly $3,200 each, drawn on the first of every month, endorsed on the back with my forged initials, and stamped "PAID CASH - WATER ST BRANCH."
Alongside them were Drury Hardscape’s internal tax returns. Jarrett had claimed those checks as standard subcontractor expenses, deducting every cent from the company’s taxable net income, completely erasing the business's tax liability while funneling thirty-eight thousand dollars in cold, untraceable cash straight into Dorene’s mortgage and their own summer vacations.
And to top it off, right at the bottom of the stack, sat an unopened duplicate envelope from the IRS, identical to the one sitting on my kitchen table at home.
"Mom? Do you want oat milk or regular?" Shauna called out from the breakroom, the sound of a refrigerator door slamming shut.
May you like
I snapped a picture of every single document with my phone, slid the folder back into place, turned the key, and dropped it back into the ceramic cup just as her sneakers squeaked against the linoleum hallway.
"Regular milk is fine, honey," I said, leaning back against the armrest of the guest chair with my hands folded in my lap. "You know I'm too old for trends."
