When the Dead Speak

Chapter 59

Chapter 59

Sam paced the length of the dining room table. Time on her hands, too much time. Tim was still working on the password. Frank hadn't called from Elkhart and it was close to seven o'clock in the evening. She had no idea where Jake was, and Hap Wilson's body was on its way back to D.C.

She had met Hap when she was younger. She had been the one tracing the pin at her father's desk. Hap had been at her father's office. Sam stopped pacing. No, Hap had been here, in her father's house.

She rushed down the stairs by the kitchen. The basement ran the entire length of the house with a ten-foot high ceiling. It was as tidy as the upstairs, decorated with the furnishings discarded from the redecorating Abby had done several years before. The patterned linoleum floor was dotted with a variety of area rugs.

Sam dodged the pool table and bookcase, stopping at the far end of the basement where a large mahogany desk sat. She heard a door upstairs close, then Jake's voice.

"DOWN HERE!" Sam yelled. When she heard his footsteps on the stairs, she said, "Help me move this."

He stared at the four-foot by six-foot red mahogany desk. "It's built like a Sherman tank."

"It was my father's. I remember now. Hap came over to the house, not the office. Maybe he left some notes."

She pulled out the heavy wooden chair and sat down. Almost immediately the drawings of lightning bolts flashed before her eyes. She smiled and said, "I knew it. I knew there was something right under my nose."

"Don't you think Abby would have found whatever your father might have left?"

"Maybe, maybe not." Sam pushed the chair away from the desk and started opening drawers.

"What are we looking for?"

"I don't know. Something, anything."

"Let's see if we can move it away from the wall." Jake grabbed one end while Sam grabbed the other. It wouldn't budge. "Like I said, it's built like a tank." He looked around the room. "Do you have a flashlight down here?"

She disappeared into a closet under the stairs and came back with a flashlight. He flashed it behind and under the desk.

"Nothing," Jake said. They proceeded to take out the drawers and turn each of them over. Taped to the underside of the bottom right-hand drawer was a small, brown envelope.

Once upstairs, seated at the dining room table, Sam still couldn't bring herself to open it. "Here." She handed the envelope to Jake. "You do it." Jake ripped the envelope open and spilled the contents on the table. A long, silver key clinked against the tabletop. "What is it?" Sam picked up the key and clenched it in her hand. Nothing. No visions, no sounds or scents.

Jake took it from her and looked at the number. "I think it's to a safety deposit box, Sam." He checked his watch. "Banks are closed. I'll check into getting a court order."

Frank called to fill them in on his visit with Parker Smith in Elkhart. The nurse had informed him of the name Parker had written-Noland. Noland was Parker's attorney.

After Jake hung up with Frank, he said, "I'm going to stop by the Chasen Heights Post Tribune office."

"I'll call the family attorney," Sam offered.

Instead, Jake headed over to the Suisse Hotel to brainstorm with Carl.