The Last Mystery Box Says No Chapter 05

The Last Mystery Box Says No Chapter 05

The airport exit.

Sabrina pushed her luggage cart out into an eighty–five–degree heat wave.

The sun was blinding.

A man stood waiting at the arrivals gate, tall, in a clean white shirt.

Callum Voss.

The first time he saw her, he didn’t smile.

His eyes swept over her face, landed on the flattened diaper bag in her arms.

Then he reached out, took the bag from her, asked nothing.

“Car’s this way.”

He walked ahead, got in. The AC hit her face and she suddenly felt cold.

Callum pulled a jacket from the back seat and handed it over.

“Wear this for now.”

She took it.

The car drove for a while. She leaned against the window, suddenly spoke.

“Callum.”

“Yeah.”

“My daughter’s gone.”

His hand tightened on the wheel. For a long time, he just said, “I know.”

She turned to look at him.

He kept his eyes on the road ahead, throat working.

“I looked into it. Sabrina, that day I nearly just flew straight over.”

“But you told me to wait seven days. So I waited seven days.”

Sabrina didn’t say anything else.

Outside the window, rows of palm trees slid past.

A strange city. Strange streefs.

That same day, Weston’s office door locked itself from the inside.

His assistant stood outside and heard glass breaking, one crash after another.

The decorative pieces on his desk, the trophies on the shelf, every mug on the coffee table–all shattered.

Once it went quiet, he called his old housekeeper, Grady.

“I told you to transfer a thousand dollars a month into her account. Did you do it.”

Silence for a long time on the other end.

“Mr. Ashcroft…”

“Did you do it?”

Grady’s voice started to shake. “No.”

Weston’s grip tightened on the phone, knuckles white.

“Three years. Not once?”

“I… I saw how you usually treated Mrs. Ashcroft, and Miss Brielle kept coming around, I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I figured she’d be replaced sooner or later, so what was the point of transferring money that’d just get wasted… Mr. Ashcroft, I was only trying to save you money!”

Weston smashed the phone against the floor. The screen shattered into a web of cracks, still lit.

He crouched down, pressed his forehead into his hand.

Three years.

She’d genuinely lived off a few dollars a month and whatever meager savings she had left before the

wedding. For three years.

He remembered that early morning, hearing her pace the living room with the baby, circle after circle.

He’d stayed behind his closed door, rolled over, gone back to sleep.

He remembered her calling him a dozen times, begging him to come pay for surgery.

He’d gone to Brielle’s side first. Because he thought she was playing him.

He remembered her crouched in front of the closet packing, and him calling it an act.

She’d only said three words: “I’m not.”

His assistant knocked, came in holding a small notebook.

“Mr. Ashcroft, housekeeping found this under the mattress.”

He opened to the first page.

Her handwriting was small, cramped together, saving paper.

[Formula’s almost out, maybe two more days. I skip my own meal, soften it and feed it to her.]

[Box opened to $9.90 today, the savings from before the wedding are almost gone too. I bought two of the cheapest diaper packs, not enough–used towels tonight instead.]

[Baby cried all night again, I couldn’t calm her down, so scared she’ll wake him. He hates crying.]

[Weston smiled today, at Brielle’s baby. I suddenly remembered he once said he’d spoil our daughter into the

happiest little princess in the world.]

[He did it. Just not for our daughter.]

Weston gripped the notebook, hands shaking without stopping.

If she’d really been in it for the money, how could she have endured a life like that for three whole years?

The last page held only one line, written faintly, as if the pen was almost out of ink.

[Baby, I’m sorry. Mom did everything I could.]