Chapter 3 - The Brass Key Wasn’t Emily’s
Emily had never seen the key.
“It was in my purse?”
The medic nodded.
Margaret immediately said Emily had stolen it.
Sarah turned.
“From where?”
Margaret stopped.
That was the mistake.
If the key meant nothing, she should not have known it was missing.
Emily was transported to a hospital for evaluation. The baby’s heartbeat
was strong, and doctors found no sign the bat had struck her abdomen.
Daniel, Emily’s husband, arrived twenty minutes later.
He looked terrified.
“What happened?”
Emily stared at him.
“Your mother tried to hit me with a baseball bat.”
Daniel went pale.
Margaret was his mother.
Victoria was his older sister.
The villa belonged to the family.
Then Emily showed him the brass key sealed in an evidence bag.
Daniel’s face changed.
“I’ve seen that.”
“Where?”
“In my father’s study.”
His father, Richard Vale, had died eleven months earlier.
Daniel explained that Richard kept a brass key on his watch chain for
years.
After his death, the key disappeared.
Emily looked toward Sarah.
“What does it open?”
Sarah answered:
May you like
“That’s what somebody was willing to hurt you to keep us from finding
out.”
