# CHAPTER 4## THE STORAGE LOCKER
Detective Bell told me not to answer.
Investigator Chen told me to let the call go to voicemail.
Aunt Lydia said nothing, but her grip on my hand tightened.
Connor’s name continued flashing across the screen.
For most of my life, I had answered every call from my brother.
At two in the morning when he needed money for a hotel room.
At six when his car had been towed.
During work meetings.
During dates.
During my first nephrology appointment, when he demanded that I leave early because his credit card had been declined at an electronics store.
Connor never called to ask whether I was all right.
He called because he wanted something.
Now someone had sent a photograph of our father destroying evidence and demanded that Connor be sent outside alone.
“Answer it,” I said.
Detective Bell frowned.
“Maya.”
“Put it on speaker. You can record it.”
After a moment, he nodded.
Investigator Chen activated a recording application on her phone.
I accepted the call.
“Hello?”
Connor was breathing hard.
“Maya?”
“Where are you?”
“I need you to listen.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m near the hospital.”
Detective Bell shook his head and silently mouthed, Don’t invite him in.
“Why?” I asked.
“Dad called me.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants the storage key.”
“What storage key?”
Connor hesitated.
“The one Mom gave me.”
I looked at the investigators.
Neither reacted.
“Why did she give it to you?”
“She said it opened a place where they kept my company inventory.”
“Your company doesn’t have inventory.”
“I know that now.”
“What’s actually inside?”
“I don’t know. Dad said there are records that could put all of us away.”
“All of you?”
“I didn’t know what they were doing.”
“You stood in my hospital room while Mom tried to beat a signature out of me.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I told security the truth.”
“After they entered.”
Connor began crying.
The sound did not move me the way it once would have.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is the key?”
“In my pocket.”
Detective Bell wrote something on a notepad and held it up.
TELL HIM TO STAY WHERE HE IS.
“Stay where you are,” I said. “Detective Bell will come get you.”
“No.”
“Connor—”
“I can’t trust the police.”
“You can’t trust Dad.”
“He said if I hand over the key, he’ll give me enough money to leave the country.”
“Money stolen from me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Another call beeped in the background.
Connor stopped breathing.
“Dad’s calling again.”
“Don’t answer.”
“He knows I’m here.”
“How?”
“I think he followed me.”
Detective Bell was already moving toward the door.
Investigator Chen followed him.
“Connor,” I said, “go inside the nearest public building.”
“I’m in the parking structure.”
“Get into the hospital.”
“I can’t. Security will arrest me.”
“You haven’t been charged.”
“Not yet.”
A loud metallic sound came through the phone.
A car door slamming.
Connor whispered, “He’s here.”
The call ended.
Detective Bell ran into the hallway.
Investigator Chen spoke rapidly into her radio.
Lydia moved toward the window, although the parking structure was not visible from my room.
I called Connor back.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
The third call went directly to voicemail.
Hospital security locked down the elevators leading to the eleventh floor. Police units entered the parking structure from both sides.
For thirteen minutes, no one told me anything.
Thirteen minutes can contain an entire lifetime when you are trapped in a hospital bed waiting to learn whether your father has harmed your brother.
I thought about Connor as a child.
He used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms.
My mother would tell him boys should not be afraid, but I would lift the blanket and let him hide beside me.
He had not always been cruel.
He had been shaped slowly.
Praised for taking.
Protected from consequences.
Taught that my labor was his birthright.
Maybe that did not excuse the man he became.
But it made it harder to stop remembering the frightened little boy beneath him.
At last, Detective Bell returned.
His jacket was open and his breathing was uneven.
“Connor is safe.”
I released a breath.
“What happened?”
“Your father approached him on the fourth level. Security officers intervened.”
“Did Dad have a weapon?”
“A tire iron was found inside his coat.”
Lydia covered her mouth.
“Did he use it?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“In custody.”
“And Connor?”
“Being interviewed.”
“The key?”
“We recovered it.”
Detective Bell held up a small evidence bag.
Inside was a brass key attached to a rectangular tag.
Unit 817.
“Do you know the facility?” I asked.
“We believe it belongs to a storage company in Cicero.”
“Go there.”
“A search warrant is being prepared.”
“My father is destroying things.”
“The photograph may have been taken earlier.”
“Who sent it?”
“We traced the number to a prepaid phone.”
Detective Bell sat down.
“Connor told us the sender may be someone named Melissa.”
“Who is Melissa?”
“A woman he met through your mother.”
I searched my memory.
“Melissa Kane?”
“You know her?”
“She works at the hospital.”
“What does she do?”
“She was at my intake appointment. Administrative coordinator, maybe.”
Detective Bell’s expression changed.
“When did you meet her?”
“About three months ago. My mother introduced us in the hallway and said Melissa was the daughter of a friend.”
“Did Melissa have access to your medical account?”
“I don’t know.”
He immediately called Investigator Chen.
While he spoke, Lydia looked at me.
“Did Evelyn attend all your appointments?”
“Most of them.”
“Did she insist?”
“She said I was too sick to understand everything.”
“Did she ever ask the doctors to speak without you?”
“All the time.”
“And they allowed that?”
“Only after I signed a release.”
“Did you sign it willingly?”
I remembered my mother placing forms in front of me while I was exhausted.
Sign here so I can help with insurance.
Sign this so I can speak to the billing office.
Sign this because the doctor is waiting.
“I don’t know.”
Lydia’s eyes closed briefly.
“Maya, your mother did the same thing to our father.”
“Grandpa?”
“When he developed dementia, she took over his accounts. She said she was protecting him.”
“What happened?”
“Nearly everything disappeared before he died.”
“Why wasn’t she charged?”
“She blamed the losses on medical expenses. Richard helped produce receipts.”
My father had worked as an accountant before retiring.
He knew how to make theft look like paperwork.
Detective Bell ended his call.
“Melissa Kane has not reported for work today.”
“Can she access my room?”
“Her credentials were suspended after the portal investigation began.”
“Did she send the photograph?”
“We don’t know.”
“What did she mean about my medication?”
“That is what we need to find out.”
At five thirty, a judge signed the search warrant.
Detective Bell left for Cicero with Investigator Chen and two financial-crimes officers.
Connor was brought upstairs under police supervision.
He looked different without confidence.
His designer hoodie was stained beneath one arm.
A bruise had formed along his jaw.
“Did Dad hit you?” I asked.
Connor touched the bruise.
“He shoved me into a car.”
Lydia stood near the window with her arms crossed.
Connor looked at her.
“Aunt Lydia?”
“You remember me.”
“Mom said you were dead.”
The room went silent.
Lydia’s face lost color.
“She told you what?”
“She said you overdosed.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
Lydia laughed once, sharply.
“Of course she did.”
Connor sat in the chair beside my bed.
A police officer remained outside the door.
“I didn’t know about the trust,” he said.
“Which trust?”
“Grandma’s.”
“How do you know about it now?”
“Dad mentioned it in the parking garage. He said there was enough in the storage unit to prove Mom had been taking money since we were children.”
“Did he say why he wanted the records?”
“To burn them.”
“And you were going to give him the key?”
Connor looked down.
“At first.”
“For money.”
“I was scared.”
“You keep saying that like fear makes every decision disappear.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
He rubbed his hands over his face.
“The streetwear company wasn’t my idea.”
I waited.
“Mom created it. Dad filed the paperwork.”
“Why?”
“They needed an account that wasn’t directly connected to them.”
“Why use your name?”
“Because they said you would never prosecute me.”
The cruelty of it was almost elegant.
They had selected the one person I had spent my life protecting.
“What was supposed to happen after I transferred the money?”
“Dad planned to move it through two consulting companies and then into an account in the Cayman Islands.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not at first. I found emails.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
Connor’s eyes filled with shame.
“Because Mom promised me fifty thousand dollars.”
Lydia turned away.
I stared at my brother.
“I was dying.”
“I didn’t think you were going to die.”
“You heard the doctors.”
“Mom said they were exaggerating so the hospital could bill more.”
“And you believed her?”
“I believed what I wanted.”
At least that answer was honest.
Connor reached into his pocket.
The officer in the hallway immediately stepped forward.
Connor lifted both hands.
“It’s just a flash drive.”
He slowly removed a small black drive and placed it on my blanket.
“What’s on it?” I asked.
“Copies of emails between Mom, Dad, and Melissa.”
“Why do you have them?”
“I downloaded them from Dad’s laptop after the police came.”
“You entered the house during the search?”
“Before. Yesterday morning.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know whether the money was real.”
“What did the emails say?”
“Melissa gave them updates from your medical chart.”
“Why?”
“They paid her.”
“With what money?”
“Yours.”
Of course.
Connor pointed at the flash drive.
“There are messages about the donor request, the power of attorney, and your medication.”
“What medication?”
He swallowed.
“Mom picked up your prescriptions, right?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t always bring you what the pharmacy gave her.”
I felt cold.
“What did she do?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You just said there were emails.”
“One message says, ‘The replacement tablets look close enough.’”
Lydia rushed toward the bed.
“What replacement tablets?”
Connor shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Mom.”
“To whom?”
“Melissa.”
The dialysis machine hummed beside me.
For nearly a year, my mother had collected my prescriptions because she said I was too busy and too tired.
She filled my weekly pill organizer.
She reminded me to take the little white tablets every morning.
My blood pressure continued climbing.
My kidney function continued falling.
Doctors increased doses.
Nothing improved.
I looked at Connor.
“Did they make me sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mom cause my kidneys to fail?”
“I swear, I don’t know.”
Before I could answer, Detective Bell called.
He had reached the storage facility.
The unit contained filing cabinets, computers, boxes of financial records, and hundreds of prescription bottles.
Most of the bottles had my name printed on them.
May you like
But they were not empty.
They were filled with the medication I was supposed to have been taking.
