Chapter 2 - The Envelope at Midnight
The voice coming from inside the copy and shipping store wasn't a recording. It was alive, breathless, and booming over the automated chime of the sliding doors.
"Leo! Becca! Get in here right now!"
My head snapped toward the entrance. A tall man in a heavy winter coat, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a scarf wrapped twice around his neck, burst through the double doors. It wasn't my dad—it was Uncle Marcus, Dad’s older brother, who lived three towns over and supposedly hadn't spoken to our side of the family in five years.
Mom froze mid-stride. The carefully constructed mask of the frantic, broken-hearted mother slipped entirely, replaced by a flash of pure, venomous panic.
"Marcus?" Mom’s voice dropped its tremor, hardening into steel. "You have no business here. Turn around and get back in your car."
"Stay back, Evelyn," Uncle Marcus barked, his voice echoing off the linoleum floor of the store. He didn't look at her; his eyes locked onto us. He sprinted the final few feet, throwing himself between us and Mom with a protectiveness that made my chest tighten. He grabbed Becca’s shoulder gently and pulled us both toward the automatic doors.
"Don't let her touch you," Marcus muttered under his breath, his hands trembling slightly as he guided us past the cashier counter.
Behind the counter, an elderly night-shift clerk stared wide-eyed at the sudden commotion, holding out a thick, manila envelope sealed with heavy red packing tape. Across the front, written in bold, permanent marker, were the words: FOR LEO & BECCA. OPEN ONLY IF ELENA FAILS.
Elena. Not Mom. Her actual name. A name we rarely heard spoken aloud, like she was shedding identities every few years.
"Mr. Vance left this three days ago," the clerk stammered, sliding the heavy package across the glass. "Paid in cash. Said if anyone else came looking for it—especially a woman matching her description—to call his attorney immediately."
I snatched the envelope. It was heavy, packed with dense paper and something hard that felt like a flash drive.
Outside the glass doors, Mom didn't follow us inside. She knew she’d lost the element of surprise. Instead, she stood under the amber glow of the gas station canopy, her SUV idling behind Uncle Marcus's battered pickup truck, blocking it in. She slowly pulled her phone to her ear. I watched her lips move, whispering instructions to someone on the other end.
"Uncle Marcus," I said, my voice shaking as I ripped the tape off the manila package. "What is going on? Where is Dad? Why does she have guardianship papers?"
"Your father isn't in Seattle, Leo," Marcus said grimly, pulling a heavy iron key from his pocket and unlocking a side door that led into a narrow alleyway behind the shops. "He flew out to Zurich six months ago. But he never made it to his conference. He’s been hiding out in a cabin up in the Cascades ever since he found out what your mother’s company was really doing."
"Company?" Becca whimpered, clutching the edge of my jacket. "Mom is a corporate accountant. She audits tech firms."
"Audit is a nice word for corporate espionage and asset laundering," Marcus spat out, shoving the side door open into the frigid night air. "Move! We need to get out of the open before her friends show up."
As we stumbled out into the alley, the shattering sound of glass echoed behind us. The front window of the copy store starred as a heavy object hit it from the outside. Mom hadn't just called someone; she had brought backup.
May you like
We piled into Marcus’s truck, the engine roaring to life before the doors were even fully shut. As we tore out of the parking lot, I ripped open the envelope. Inside, photographs spilled onto my lap—pictures of our house under construction, blueprints of the basement that didn't match reality, and a financial ledger showing millions of dollars moving through accounts under names I had never seen before.
And right at the bottom of the stack was a handwritten letter from Dad, dated just yesterday, ending with a sentence that made my blood run cold: “If you are reading this, she has already tried to erase us. Trust no one, not even the police.”
