Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1)(20)

8





Nat





Heart pounding, I stare at the key. It’s nondescript, completely average looking. There’s nothing unusual about it that I can tell.

I turn it over. Engraved on the other side at the top is a series of numbers: 30-01.

That’s it.

There’s no note in the envelope. There’s nothing else but this damn silver key, which could open anything from a front door to a padlock. I have no way of knowing.

What the hell, David? What is this?

After several minutes of staring at it in confusion, I rise and head to my laptop. It’s on the kitchen counter. I have to step over Mojo snoozing in the middle of the floor on the way.

I fire up the Mac and google “How to identify a key I found.”

The search returns more than 900,000,000 results.

The first page has advice from locksmiths and key manufacturers, along with images of various types of keys. I click on the images, but a quick scan reveals nothing that looks like the key in my hand. The manufacturer websites aren’t helpful, either.

I think for a minute, then turn to the junk drawer and pull it open.

An extra set of house keys is there, along with duplicate keys for the padlock to the shed in the backyard, my locker at the gym, my classroom key, my car key, and the key to the small safe in my bedroom where I keep my social security card, title to the house, and other important papers.

None of them look anything like the key from the envelope.

My first instinct is to call Sloane, but having told her not ten minutes ago that I needed to stop relying on her so much, I don’t.

I stand in the kitchen rubbing my thumb absently back and forth over the key as I think of possible explanations.

David wasn’t prone to whimsy. He wouldn’t mail me a key as a game. He was serious, mature, an altogether responsible adult. A little too responsible, in fact. I often teased him that he was old before his time.

There was a ten-year age difference between us, but sometimes, when he was in one of his funks, it felt like fifty.

He was an only child whose parents had both died in a car accident when he was right out of high school. He had no other family but me. He moved to Lake Tahoe from the Midwest a year before I met him and took a job working the ski lifts at Northstar Resort. In the summers, he took tourists on lake tours for a boat rental company. He was in great shape, a natural athlete, and loved the outdoors. He exercised as much as he could.

It helped him sleep better. On the days when he had to skip a workout, he’d be restless and agitated, pacing like a caged animal.

Those nights, he’d jolt out of a dead sleep, shaking and drenched in sweat.

I made more money than he did, but neither of us cared. He had a knack for saving and investing, and both of us were frugal, so we got along fine financially. My parents left me the house when they retired to Arizona to live in a condo on a golf course, so I was in the fortunate position of having no mortgage payment.

After our honeymoon, David was going to move in with me.

Obviously, fate had other plans.

When the knock on the door comes, I nearly jump out of my skin. Mojo lets out a yawn and rolls over.

Then the doorbell rings, and a voice comes through the door. “Natalie? You home?”

It’s Chris.

Dumped-me-over-the-phone Chris, who’s now dropping by unannounced as I’m having a meltdown over a mysterious unidentified key my missing fiancé mailed to me from the past.

He always did have shitty timing.

When I open the door and see him standing there in his uniform, holding his hat in his hand and smiling sheepishly, my heart sinks. I can tell this isn’t a conversation I want to have.

“Hi.”

“Hey, Nat.” His gaze sweeps over me. His smile falters. “You okay?”

Cops and their damn sharp eyes. Though he’s a sheriff, not a police officer, he’s got that law-enforcement heightened-senses thing. That high-alert watchfulness that assumes everyone is about to commit a crime.

My cheeks are dry, but he can probably smell the tears on me.

I smile reassuringly. “Yeah. Fine. How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I just wanted to check up on you.”

Wondering if that busybody Diane Myers pestered him into this, I lift my brows. “Really? Why’s that?”

He glances bashfully at the ground for a moment, chewing his lower lip.

It’s an adorable, boyish look. He’s got the whole Clark Kent cute-nerd thing going, complete with glasses and a cleft chin. I feel a vague twinge of regret that I never felt anything for him, because he’d make someone an awfully good husband.

Just not me.

He looks up at me with his chin still lowered. “I feel bad about how we left it the other night. I think I was kind of a jerk.”

Oh. That. I’d already forgotten. “Don’t be silly. You were a total gentleman.”

He examines my face in silence. “Yeah? Because you look upset.”

It’s amazing how men assume any emotion a woman is feeling must somehow be directly related to them. I’m sure I’ll be suffering from a menopause hot flash one day twenty years in the future and the idiot in line behind me at the grocery store will think I’m red-faced and sweating because he’s too hot to handle.