Page 56 of Hidden Tide
I stare at the polished wood and the brass band encircling it a few inches beneath the handle.
“Your cane?” I ask.
He twists the brass band.
A faint click breaks the silence.
Thomas pulls upward, separating the curved handle from the shaft. A narrow hollow runs through the center of the cane.
He turns it over.
A small brass key falls into his palm.
Keating stares at him. “You carried that into a federal evidence room?”
“I’m eighty-six. No one searches the old man’s cane.”
Ben exhales beside me. “Remind me never to underestimate you.”
Thomas’s mouth twitches. “You’d be wise not to.”
“Where is the envelope?” Keating asks.
“The key opens a safe-deposit box.”
“At what bank?”
“The Harbor Trust branch downtown.”
Nathan shakes his head. “That branch closed two years ago.”
“The boxes were transferred to First Coastal.”
“Under your name?” Keating asks.
“No. James rented it.”
“Then the bank won’t let us open it without a warrant.”
Thomas closes his fingers around the key. “It isn’t under James Sinclair’s name.”
Mom’s expression changes. “Whose name did he use?”
“Jonathan Sinclair.”
A chill passes through me.
Jonathan Sinclair.
Grandpa’s brother.
The man whose remains were discovered near Blackwater after he had been missing for more than three years.
“Why would Grandpa use Jonathan’s name?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Jonathan know about the box?” Ben asks.
