A Letter From a Dead Woman

Chapter 04 - A Letter From a Dead Woman

The second item in the envelope was a key.

Small. Brass. Old enough that the edges had dulled.

Josephine turned it over in her palm.

“What does it open?”

Eleanor shook her head. “Claire never told me.”

There was also a folded note, written by Josephine’s mother three months before her own death.

Jo, if you are reading this, then keeping the truth quiet has become more dangerous than telling it.

Josephine stopped.

Her mother had always called her Jo only when she was worried.

She read on.

Your father died protecting a child who was not ours by blood. We raised that child because he deserved a life that belonged to him, not to the people who would use his name. Wyatt is your brother. Never let anyone make you believe otherwise.

Josephine pressed the page to her chest.

Raphael stared at the floor.

Eleanor wiped her face with a tissue.

The note continued.

The woman who gave birth to him was named Dileia. She loved him. Your father trusted her. I did too.

Raphael’s eyes closed.

For eleven years, he had carried one picture of Dileia: the last family photograph, taken at Easter. She had been wearing a yellow dress and making a face at the camera because Raphael told her to stand still.

Now another image replaced it.

Dileia holding a newborn he had never known existed.

Josephine read the last paragraph.

If Wyatt ever becomes seriously ill, use the key. Go to Union Station in Providence. Locker 314. Sam said the papers there would matter one day.

The room went quiet.

Gideon spoke first.

“That locker won’t still exist.”

Raphael looked at him.

“Find out.”

“It has been eleven years.”

“Find out.”

Gideon stepped into the hallway with his phone.

Josephine folded the note carefully.

“You didn’t know,” she said.

Raphael looked at her.

It was not a question.

“No.”

“You really didn’t.”

“No.”

She studied him for several seconds.

“I believe you.”

He did not deserve the relief that sentence gave him.

Eleanor did not look convinced.

“Your father knew.”

Raphael’s expression hardened.

“My father is dead.”

“That doesn’t make him innocent.”

“No.”

Josephine flinched at the coldness of the answer.

Raphael softened his voice.

“I am not asking you to trust my family.”

She gave a tired laugh. “That would be difficult right now.”

“I’m asking you to let me find out what happened.”

“Why?”

The question struck him harder than accusation would have.

He could have said because Dileia was my sister.

Because Wyatt may be my nephew.

Because your father died in my family’s shadow and someone paid your mother to stay quiet.

Instead he said the simplest thing.

“Because you knocked on my door.”

Josephine looked away first.

At 5:12 a.m., Gideon returned.

“The station lockers were replaced eight years ago.”

Eleanor exhaled.

“But.”

Raphael lifted his eyes.

Gideon held up his phone.

“When they renovated, unclaimed items were transferred to a contracted storage company. The inventory records are incomplete. Locker 314 is listed as ‘legal materials, sealed.’”

Josephine sat forward.

“Still there?”

“Possibly.”

“Where?”

“Pawtucket.”

Raphael reached for his keys.

Josephine caught his sleeve.

“Wyatt is in surgery.”

He stopped.

She released him immediately.

“Sorry.”

Raphael looked down at the place her hand had been.

“No. You’re right.”

They stayed.

At 7:40, Dr. Feld entered the waiting room.

Josephine stood before he said a word.

“The repair went well.”

Her knees nearly gave.

Eleanor caught one arm. Raphael caught the other.

“He’s on bypass now while they finish. We had more bleeding than expected, but it is controlled. He’ll go to intensive care afterward.”

Josephine nodded several times.

“Can I see him?”

“Once he’s stable.”

She pressed both hands over her face.

This time, no one told her not to cry.

Two hours later, she sat beside Wyatt’s bed in the cardiac ICU, watching machines perform the jobs his body was too tired to do alone.

Wyatt looked impossibly young.

Raphael stood in the doorway.

Josephine had once told him Wyatt loved astronomy and hated broccoli. That was everything he knew about the boy who might share his blood.

He felt shame arrive quietly.

Not because he had done something to Wyatt.

Because he had lived eleven years in the same world and had never known to look.

Mrs. Roz called around noon.

Raphael answered in the corridor.

“How is the boy?”

“Alive.”

Mrs. Roz released a shaky breath.

“And Josephine?”

“With him.”

A pause.

“Raphael.”

Something in her voice made him straighten.

“What?”

“There was a break-in.”

His eyes sharpened.

“Where?”

“Your father’s archive room.”

That room had no jewelry. No cash. No weapons. Only records.

“What was taken?”

“We don’t know yet. Gideon’s coming back.”

Raphael looked through the glass at Josephine sleeping with her forehead near Wyatt’s hand.

“Security footage?”

“Pulled.”

“Send it.”

His phone buzzed.

A still image appeared.

The timestamp read 4:18 a.m., while all four of them had been at the hospital.

A woman in a gray maid uniform stood outside the archive door.

Dark hair.

White apron.

Crooked brass name pin.

Raphael stared at the image.

It looked exactly like Josephine.

But Josephine had been sitting beside him at 4:18.

Which meant someone had not merely broken into his father’s archive.

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Someone had dressed as the woman he had driven to Boston.

**And whoever had worn Josephine’s uniform knew exactly which door to open.**