Chapter 5 – THE YELLOW BOOTS

I stared at the photograph in Hannah’s sketchbook. The bright yellow rain boots.

“We donated all of Grandma’s clothes to the thrift store after she died,” I said, panic rising in my chest. “Did you keep the boots?”

Hannah shook her head. “No. They were too small for me.”

“Then they’re gone,” I whispered, closing the laptop. “If we don’t have the key to that safety deposit box, we don’t have Mom’s original ledger. Without her proof, Richard’s lawyers will just claim this flash drive is something I fabricated to frame him.”

“Mom, wait,” Hannah said, grabbing my arm. Her eyes were bright, tracing the memory. “We didn’t donate the boots. Don’t you remember? The day we cleaned out the house, Dad said they were covered in paint and too ruined to give away. He told the movers to throw them in the trash.”

I tried to think back to that blur of a week. The grief had been so heavy. Richard had handled all the logistics of clearing out my mother’s home.

“If he threw them in the trash seven years ago, they’re buried in a landfill,” I said.

“But he didn’t throw them in the trash!” Hannah insisted. “I saw him put them in a box labeled ‘Attic Keepsakes’. He brought them back to our house.”

I stopped breathing.

Richard hadn’t thrown them away. He knew my mother was hiding something. He just didn’t know what, or where. He kept the boots because he kept everything he thought might hold leverage.

“They’re at the house,” I said.

I looked at the airport clock. 2:15 AM.

Richard was in Hangar 4, preparing for a 6:00 AM flight.

“Vanessa,” I turned to the shivering woman on the bench. “Call the hangar. Tell them you got delayed by a traffic accident but you’re on your way. Tell him you have the flash drive. Keep him waiting as long as possible.”

“What are you going to do?” Vanessa asked.

“I’m going to get my mother’s leverage,” I said.

I drove like a madwoman back to our suburban home. The rain was coming down in sheets now, masking the sound of my tires pulling into our driveway. The house was pitch black.

“Stay in the car,” I told Hannah, leaving the engine running.

“No,” she said firmly, unbuckling her seatbelt. “She’s my grandma too.”

We ran through the rain, unlocking the front door. The house was eerily silent. We bypassed the wreckage of Richard’s home office and went straight up the stairs to the pull-down attic door.

I yanked the cord, and the wooden stairs unfolded with a loud creak.

The attic was filled with twenty years of holiday decorations and old furniture. I turned on my phone flashlight, sweeping the beam across the dusty boxes.

In the far corner, beneath a heavy tarp, were three plastic storage bins labeled Eleanor – Miscellaneous.

I crawled over the rafters, popping the lid off the first bin. Old sweaters. Books.

I opened the second bin. Photo albums. Coffee mugs.

I ripped the lid off the third bin.

Sitting at the very bottom, covered in dried specks of blue and red paint, were Hannah’s tiny yellow rain boots.

I pulled them out. My hands were shaking. I tipped the first boot upside down. Nothing. I reached my hand inside, pressing the sole. Just rubber.

I grabbed the second boot. I tipped it over. Nothing fell out.

“Mom, let me,” Hannah said.

She took the boot from my hands. She didn’t look inside. Instead, she flipped it over and looked at the thick rubber treads on the bottom.

“Grandma always said the secret to a good painting is hiding the best details in plain sight,” Hannah whispered.

She took her fingernail and dug into a small, square clump of what looked like dried gray mud wedged deep in the tread.

The ‘mud’ flaked away. It was clay. Gray modeling clay.

Beneath it was a tiny, flat, brass key wrapped in plastic.

A sob escaped my throat. I hugged my daughter so tightly she gasped. “You found it. You found it, baby.”

But as I pulled back, the attic stairs groaned.

A shadow fell across the wooden floorboards.

“I thought you might figure it out eventually,” Richard’s voice echoed in the cramped space.

I spun around.

Richard was standing at the top of the attic stairs, wearing a dark raincoat, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker in his right hand.

“Vanessa called me,” he said, his eyes dead and cold. “She was crying. Apologizing. Saying you had the flash drive.”

He took a step toward us.

“Hand over the key, Catherine.”

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