Chapter 1 - THE KEY UNDER MY COLLAR
Julian punched me before the final prayer ended.
One second I was standing beside our father’s polished coffin at Bellwood Funeral Chapel in Columbus, Ohio, listening to the minister talk about Thomas Mercer’s patience.
The next, my brother’s fist struck my cheek hard enough to send me sideways into the coffin.
Someone screamed.
My cousin Mark wrapped both arms around Julian from behind.
“Get off me!”
Julian fought him with enough force to knock a floral stand crooked.
I caught myself against the coffin and tasted copper.
“Give me the damn safe key!” Julian shouted. “Dad’s money belongs to me!”
Dozens of relatives stared.
Uncle Raymond looked horrified.
Samuel Price, Dad’s attorney for nearly twenty years, remained near the second row holding the same sealed folder he had brought into the chapel.
My hand went instinctively to the brass key hanging beneath my black dress.
Dad had given it to me twelve days before he died.
Not Julian.
Me.
That fact had apparently been eating my brother alive.
“She’s stealing my inheritance!” Julian yelled.
He broke one arm partly free from Mark and reached across the coffin for my necklace.
I twisted away.
His fingers caught the chain.
Mark forced his arm down before it snapped.
I pulled the key into full view.
Julian stared at it.
For the first time since he hit me, I stopped backing away.
“Dad made me executor because he knew exactly what you’d do when he died.”
That was crueler than I intended.
Julian went still.
Then Samuel stepped forward.
He lifted the sealed folder.
“Your father left instructions concerning the accounts Julian accessed before his death.”
Something changed in Julian’s face.
Not anger.
Recognition.
He lunged.
Mark caught him again, but Julian’s hand struck the edge of Samuel’s folder.
“Don’t open that!”
Nobody in the chapel moved.
Samuel looked at me.
“Your father requested that the safe be opened with family witnesses present.”
Julian stopped fighting.
That frightened me more than his rage.
Dad had kept a safe in his study for thirty years.
When we were children, Julian used to joke that it held gold bars.
After Mom died, he started calling it “the inheritance box.”
I had never seen inside.
Samuel continued.
“There is no cash in it.”
Julian closed his eyes.
I stared at him.
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If he already knew the safe contained no money, then he had not punched me because he believed I was hiding Dad’s fortune.
He had punched me because he knew what Dad had put there instead.
