Free Frame 232 by Wil Mara Page B

coat, gloves, and her bag. That’s it. I saw nothing, and she showed me nothing.”
    Sheila began to experience a feeling of dreamy disorientation. She looked toward the old windows with their cracked paint and smudgy panes. The Piedmont Building was visible on the other side. There was also the usual cacophony of street noise drifting up from below.
    “All these years, and she never told anyone.”
    “It appears that way,” Moore said.
    “How often did she go to it?”
    “Just once.”
    “Once?”
    “Yes. The day after I opened it for her. That was the only time in nearly forty years.”
    A moment of unearthly quiet hung between them while Sheila tried to find a place for this information in her mind. “Forty years,” she repeated.
    “This burden . . .”
    “Yes. Aside from that, she came here annually to give me the money for the fee. It was always in cash. She asked me not to tell anyone about it until after her death. And when that time came, I was to give this key   —” he held it up   —“to your father. And if he was gone, then to you.”
    “This burden that I’m leaving you . . .”
    “So now I fulfill this final request.” He leaned over and passed it to Sheila, who appraised it as though she’d never seen a key before.
    “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been curious about what’s in there. Giving that key to you constitutes the longest piece of unfinished business I’ve had in my practice. I’ve often wondered if I would even get to do it. I’m not exactly a teenager anymore. And there were days when I thought maybe your mother would just close the box and that would be the end of it. Then again, I’m not all that surprised. You had to see her that day, Sheila. As the saying goes, you had to be there.”
    She shook her head. My mother, scared? To the point where she would do something like this without telling anyone? Even Dad?
    “. . . probably hidden somewhere in the house,” Moore was saying.
    “I’m sorry; what was that?”
    “I said the other key, her key   —the bank issues two for each box holder   —is probably hidden somewhere in the house.”
    “Oh . . . yeah, probably.”
    “Anyway, that takes care of that.”
    He rose from behind the desk, came around, and sat on the corner of it. “Listen, I don’t know what’s in there. But whatever it is, if you need me for anything further, I want you to call right away. Okay? Promise?”
    Still half-dazed, Sheila nodded. Later, she would barely remember shaking Henry Moore’s hand and walking out of his office. By the time she reached her car, an unshakable feeling was beginning to race through her   —that whatever was waiting in that box would likely require more than just the services of a lawyer.

5
    SHEILA KNEW there were plenty of other pressing matters to attend to, but she also knew she had no hope of focusing on them until she looked into this first.
    She found Texas First National on Dearborn Street, just two blocks west of Federal. It was one of Dallas’s oldest financial institutions, or so said the motto that ran in gold letters across the front doors. The lobby was all green marble and walnut. The teller windows were on the left, the managers’ desks on the right. Only one was occupied   —by a heavyset man in a size-too-small navy suit, working at his computer. He had thinning black hair combed in a horizontal sweep over the top, and a doughy, boyish face.
    As soon as he spotted Sheila, he smiled and rose. “Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m Jay Gallagher. Can I help you with something?”
    An eager beaver. He held his hand out, and Sheila took it. Cold and dry. His eyes ran shamelessly over her body.
    She thought about turning around, walking back out, and forgetting about the box. Whatever was in there, she’d lived without it this long.
    Instead, she heard herself say, “Yes, I have a safe-deposit box here.” She took the key from her pocket and showed it to him.
    “Wow, that’s one