Chapter 3 - THE LOCKED DRAWER
The room went dead silent again.
It was as if someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the kitchen.
Carmen froze mid-breath. Her hand, which had been raised to gesticulate wildly, stiffened in mid-air. Her dark eyes snapped away from mine and locked onto my five-year-old daughter with a terrifying, predator-like intensity.
"Shut your mouth, Olivia!" Carmen snapped, her voice trembling with a sudden, vicious panic she couldn't mask. "Shut your mouth right now!"
"Hey!" I roared, stepping directly into Carmen's line of sight, taking up the entire doorway. "Do not speak to my daughter again!"
"She's lying! She doesn't know what she's talking about!" Carmen shrieked, her voice reaching a frantic, shrill register. "She's five years old! She makes up stories! Zayden, look at me! You're letting your mind get twisted!"
I didn't listen to her. I turned back to my daughter.
I knelt down on one knee in front of the counter so I was eye-level with Olivia. I took her small, cool arm gently in my hand.
"What locked drawer, Livvie?" I asked softly. "Tell Daddy."
Olivia swallowed hard, glancing nervously at Carmen before looking back at me.
"In Grandma’s room," Olivia whispered, her small voice clear and unwavering. "Under her big closet. She has a nightstand with a key. When you go to work, Daddy... she makes Mommy open the closet, but she puts a little black box in the bottom drawer and locks it with a gold key she wears around her neck."
My eyes slowly moved from my daughter’s face to my mother’s neck.
Hanging beneath the collar of her red silk dress was a thin, delicate gold chain. Tucked beneath the fabric was a tiny, brass key.
I had seen that chain for months. I had assumed it was a cross. A religious token.
"What's in the drawer, Carmen?" I asked quietly, standing up to my full height.
"It's my personal property!" Carmen hissed, taking a step backward toward the living room hallway. "My private papers! My medical records! You have no legal right to pry into my belongings in this house!"
"This is my house," I reminded her, my tone ice-cold. "My name is on the lease. My name pays the mortgage."
From outside the high-rise building, the faint, wailing echo of police sirens began to rise through the afternoon air.
The remaining guests in the living room were practically trampling each other in the foyer trying to get their shoes on.
"Carmen, I'm leaving!" her friend in the leopard hat yelled, grabbing her purse and sprinting past the kitchen toward the front door. "I'm not getting arrested for your family drama!"
"Wait! Evelyn, don't leave me!" Carmen called out uselessly.
Within sixty seconds, the heavy oak front door slammed shut, followed by the sound of frantically running heels down the concrete stairs. The guests had vanished.
Only the four of us remained.
"Jessica," I said, not taking my eyes off my mother. "Take Olivia into our bedroom. Lock the door from the inside until the paramedics arrive."
Jessica nodded weakly. She lifted Olivia into her arms, keeping the wet towel secured around our daughter's hands. As Jessica walked past Carmen, my mother reached out a hand as if to grab Jessica’s arm.
"Don't touch her," I growled.
Carmen pulled her hand back as if burned.
Jessica hurried down the long carpeted hallway, the bedroom door shutting with a firm, solid click behind her.
I turned my full attention to my mother.
She was sweating now. Dark patches were forming beneath the armpits of her crimson silk dress. The arrogant matriarch who had sat at the head of the table ten minutes ago was rapidly crumbling into a cornered animal.
"Give me the key, Carmen," I held out my open hand.
"No," she whispered, backing away down the hall toward her bedroom. "You can't make me. You can't search my room without a warrant! I know my rights!"
"You gave up your rights the second you put my daughter's hands under scalding water," I said.
I walked toward her.
She turned and sprinted—as fast as her supposedly crippled, arthritic knees could carry her—down the hallway toward her bedroom.
She wasn't limping. There was no trace of the agonizing knee pain she had claimed for twelve months to justify staying in our apartment rent-free. She moved with the speed and agility of a healthy woman forty years old.
She reached her room, grabbed the heavy wooden door, and tried to slam it shut in my face.
I caught the edge of the door with my palm.
May you like
The force of my hand striking the oak rattled the hinges. I pushed inward with ease, forcing the door open. Carmen stumbled backward into her room, losing her balance and falling heavily onto the edge of her unmade king-sized bed.
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.
