Ruthless Creatures

18

“We’re not sure what happened. I mean, the outgoing box was pretty tweaked. There was a gap on one side where it had rusted, and I guess…I guess this just fell through the c***k and got stuck behind. When we went to replace the boxes, we found it.”

He holds the envelope out to me. I recoil in sheer terror.

When I just stand there gaping at it like a crazy person, he says, “It’s uh…it’s addressed to you.”

I whisper breathlessly, “Okay. Okay. Just…hold on a sec.”

He looks left. He looks right. He looks like he’s really, really regretting ringing my doorbell.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.” I snatch the envelope from his hand, whirl around, and run back inside, then slam the door behind me. I collapse against it, clutching the envelope and gasping for breath.

After a moment, I hear his voice.

“Do you want me to… Do you need someone to be with you when you open it?”

I have to stuff my fist into my mouth so I don’t sob out loud.

Just when you think the world is a worthless pile of meaningless s**t, the kindness of a random stranger can knock you flat on your ass.

“I’m good,” I say, in a strangled voice that I’m sure broadcasts exactly how not good I am. “Thank you, Josh. You’re so sweet. Thank you.”

“Okay, then. Take care.”

I hear footsteps shuffle off, then he’s gone.

Because my knees can no longer support the weight of my body, I slide to the floor. I sit there shaking against the door for I don’t know how long, staring at the envelope in my sweaty hands.

It’s stained in a few places. The paper is dry, tinged faintly yellow. There’s a stamp in the upper right corner: the American flag. It hasn’t gone through the post office, so there’s no date stamp to indicate when David put it in the outgoing box.

But it must’ve been only a day or two before he disappeared. If it was longer than that, he would’ve asked if I received it.

And why would he mail me something in the first place? We were together every day.

I turn the envelope over slowly in my hands. Gently. Reverently. I lift it to my nose and sniff, but there’s no trace of his scent. I run my finger over the letters of my name, written in faded black ink in his precise, slanted handwriting.

Then I blow out a breath, turn it back over, slide my fingernail under the flap with its brittle, crumbling glue, and rip it open.

Into my palm slides out a heavy silver key.

8

Nat

H

eart pounding, I stare at the key. It’s nondescript, completely average looking. There’s nothing unusual about it that I can tell.

I turn it over. Engraved on the other side at the top is a series of numbers: 30-01.

That’s it.

There’s no note in the envelope. There’s nothing else but this damn silver key, which could open anything from a front door to a padlock. I have no way of knowing.

What the hell, David? What is this?

After several minutes of staring at it in confusion, I rise and head to my laptop. It’s on the kitchen counter. I have to step over Mojo snoozing in the middle of the floor on the way.

I fire up the Mac and google “How to identify a key I found.”

The search returns more than 900,000,000 results.

The first page has advice from locksmiths and key manufacturers, along with images of various types of keys. I click on the images, but a quick scan reveals nothing that looks like the key in my hand. The manufacturer websites aren’t helpful, either.

I think for a minute, then turn to the junk drawer and pull it open.

An extra set of house keys is there, along with duplicate keys for the padlock to the shed in the backyard, my locker at the gym, my classroom key, my car key, and the key to the small safe in my bedroom where I keep my social security card, title to the house, and other important papers.

None of them look anything like the key from the envelope.

My first instinct is to call Sloane, but having told her not ten minutes ago that I needed to stop relying on her so much, I don’t.

I stand in the kitchen rubbing my thumb absently back and forth over the key as I think of possible explanations.

David wasn’t prone to whimsy. He wouldn’t mail me a key as a game. He was serious, mature, an altogether responsible adult. A little too responsible, in fact. I often teased him that he was old before his time.

There was a ten-year age difference between us, but sometimes, when he was in one of his funks, it felt like fifty.

He was an only child whose parents had both died in a car accident when he was right out of high school. He had no other family but me. He moved to Lake Tahoe from the Midwest a year before I met him and took a job working the ski lifts at Northstar Resort. In the summers, he took tourists on lake tours for a boat rental company. He was in great shape, a natural athlete, and loved the outdoors. He exercised as much as he could.

It helped him sleep better. On the days when he had to skip a workout, he’d be restless and agitated, pacing like a caged animal.

Those nights, he’d jolt out of a dead sleep, shaking and drenched in sweat.

I made more money than he did, but neither of us cared. He had a knack for saving and investing, and both of us were frugal, so we got along fine financially. My parents left me the house when they retired to Arizona to live in a condo on a golf course, so I was in the fortunate position of having no mortgage payment.