Pick up a mop and go clean the latrines, kid, this range isn't for street trash, the range master sneered, shoving fifteen-year-old Malik Holloway away from the custom training rifle.
The late afternoon sun slanted through the living room window of our South Fulton County home, casting long shadows across the worn carpet. The silence of the house pressed in on me as I walked in, Marcus’s words still echoing in my head.
“Malik? Is that you?” Maya called from the dining room.
I found her hunched over the dining room table, a small lamp illuminating a scattered array of my father’s belongings. She was meticulously sifting through a box of his personal effects, her brow furrowed in concentration. My older sister, Maya, was twenty-one, a forensic accounting clerk, and always saw patterns where others saw chaos.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I mumbled, dropping my backpack by the door.
She looked up, her expression softening when she saw my face. “Rough day at Aegis?”
I just nodded, slumping into a chair across from her. I didn’t know how to start explaining what Marcus had said, how he’d tried to paint Dad as a disgraced liar.
“I’m going through Dad’s things,” she explained, picking up a faded photograph. “Trying to figure out what he left us. Uncle Marcus has been… less than transparent about the will.”
This was typical Marcus. Ever since Dad’s suspicious drowning three months ago in Lake Lanier, he’d taken over Aegis Tactical, Dad’s private security firm, and acted like he owned everything else too.
“He called Dad a failure today,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “Said the pendant was fake, that Dad forged his discharge papers.”
Maya’s fingers paused, hovering over a small pile of letters. Her expression hardened. “That sounds exactly like him. Anything to discredit Dad and keep us from asking questions.” She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Don’t listen to him, Malik. Dad was a good man.”
She picked up a heavy, old wristwatch. It was Dad’s favorite, a classic stainless steel piece, but the crystal was shattered, and the hands were frozen at 2:47. He’d always worn it.
“I found this in his tackle box,” she said, turning it over in her hand. “Looks like it took a pretty hard hit.”
She fiddled with the clasp, then the stem, her analytical mind already at work. Suddenly, she grunted in surprise.
“Hold on a second.” She held the watch up to the light, peering at a tiny seam on the side of the casing. “There’s something in here.”
With a small, sharp dental pick she’d found in Dad’s tool kit, Maya carefully pried open a nearly invisible compartment on the side of the watch casing, right where the winding stem met the body. It was a space so small, it seemed impossible for anything to fit.
Out of the tiny cavity, she extracted a miniature brass key. It was no bigger than my thumbnail, worn smooth with age, and completely unlike any house or car key I’d ever seen. Etched into its side, barely visible, were three small letters: “FGB.”
“What is that?” I leaned forward, a surge of adrenaline washing away the earlier gloom.
Maya turned the key over, her eyes wide. “FGB… First Georgia Bank.” Her voice was a hushed whisper. “This has to be a safety deposit box key. Why would Dad hide something like this inside his watch?”
She looked at me, her gaze intense. “This isn’t random, Malik. Dad didn’t just ‘drown.’ He left clues. He knew something was going to happen.”
The small, unassuming key in her palm felt heavy, a tangible piece of Dad’s last, desperate message. Marcus’s lies about disgrace and forged papers suddenly felt weaker, overshadowed by this undeniable evidence of Dad’s deliberate foresight.
“He was trying to tell us something,” I said, a new resolve hardening my voice. “He was trying to protect us.”
Maya nodded slowly, her fingers still tracing the tiny letters on the key. “And we’re going to find out what.”
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