The Vow He Kept

The Female At The Dock

The Vow He Kept

Chapter Six: The Female At The Dock

The dock was quiet when they got there. Too quiet.

Adrian parked the car in the shadows, away from the one working streetlight. Maya sat frozen in the passenger seat, staring out at the water, her hands wrapped tight around the brass key like it could keep her steady.

Adrian: "Ethan's parked two blocks back. Claire's on the phone the whole time. You're not out there alone, even if it looks that way."

Maya: "Okay."

Adrian: "You don't have to do this."

Maya: "Yes, I do."

She stepped out of the car before he could argue again. The night air was cold and smelled like salt and old wood. Her footsteps echoed on the dock boards, way too loud for how quiet everything else was.

A figure stood near the end of the dock, wrapped in a long coat, hood pulled up against the wind. She didn't turn around right away.

Maya: "I'm here."

The woman turned. Under the dim light, her face looked older than the photo, but the eyes were exactly the same. Maya's chest tightened so hard it hurt to breathe.

Woman: "You look just like her. Just like Rose, when she was young."

Maya: "Are you my mother?"

The woman was quiet for a long moment, long enough that Maya's heart nearly stopped waiting for the answer.

Woman: "I'm not your mother, sweetheart. I'm your mother's sister."

Maya took a step back, the ground suddenly feeling less solid under her feet.

Maya: "My mom didn't have a sister. My grandma never once mentioned a sister."

Woman: "Because Rose spent eighteen years making sure nobody ever found out I existed. Not you. Not Voss. Not anyone."

Maya: "Then who are you?"

Woman: "My name is Diane. Your mother's twin. We looked so alike people used to mix us up in photographs their whole lives."

The pieces started falling into place in Maya's head, fast and painful. The photo. The two young women outside the café, laughing, arms around each other. Not her grandmother and her mother.

Her grandmother and this woman.

Maya: "That photo. It wasn't my mom in it. It was you."

Diane: "Yes."

Maya: "So my mom really is dead."

Diane's face softened, and for a second, something like grief passed over it, old and worn thin from years of carrying it alone.

Diane: "Your mother died the way you were told. The accident was real. What wasn't real was why it happened, and who was really responsible."

Behind them, gravel crunched under a boot. Maya spun around fast, but it was only Adrian, stepping out of the shadows with his phone still pressed to his ear, Claire's voice audible but too quiet to make out.

Adrian: "Diane."

Diane's whole body went rigid at the sound of his voice.

Diane: "You know who I am."

Adrian: "My father knew who you were. He had a file on you going back fifteen years. I only found it after he died."

Diane: "Then you know why I've stayed hidden."

Adrian: "I know some of it. Not all of it."

Diane looked past him toward the tree line at the edge of the parking lot, like she was checking for something, or someone, that shouldn't have been there yet.

Diane: "We don't have much time. Voss has people watching every road out of this town tonight. I only got this close because I know which ones they haven't found yet."

Maya: "Wait, slow down. Why does any of this matter to Voss? What does my mom's death have to do with a key and some old company secret?"

Diane reached into her coat and pulled out something small, wrapped in cloth. She held it out to Maya with a shaking hand.

Diane: "Because the key you're carrying doesn't open a safe full of documents, like everyone's telling you. It opens something much smaller. And much more dangerous."

Maya unwrapped the cloth slowly. Inside was a second key, almost identical to the brass one in her pocket, except this one was silver, and colder to the touch.

Maya: "There are two keys?"

Diane: "There have always been two keys. Rose kept one. I kept the other. Neither one works alone."

Adrian stepped closer, studying the silver key in Maya's hand with something sharp flickering behind his eyes.

Adrian: "What do they open together?"

Diane opened her mouth to answer.

The gunshot cracked through the night before she got the chance.

Diane's whole body jerked sideways, and she dropped hard onto the dock boards, the silver key skittering out of Maya's shaking hand and disappearing through a gap between the planks, straight down into the black water below.

Maya screamed and dropped to her knees beside her.

Maya: "No, no, stay with me, please—"

Adrian grabbed Maya and pulled her flat against the dock, shielding her body with his own as a second shot splintered the wood right where her head had been a second earlier.

Adrian: "Stay down!"

Diane's hand found Maya's wrist, weak but urgent, her lips moving fast even as blood soaked through her coat.

Diane: "It's not Voss. Look at the tree line. That's not one of his men."

Maya turned her head just enough to see a shape stepping out from between the trees, g*n still raised, moving calm and steady across the parking lot toward them.

It wasn't a stranger at all.

It was Ethan.