Chapter 5: The Documents in the Box
The branch manager at Regions Bank on Bull Street was a quiet, careful man named Mr.
Okafor who had worked there for nineteen years.
He recognized the box number without needing to look it up.
"Mr.
Serrano has been a customer here a long time," he said, leading Alvin to the vault room.
"He came in himself about eighteen months ago to set up the second box.
Paid two years in advance."
"Did anyone else ever try to access it?"
Mr.
Okafor stopped at the vault door and looked at Alvin directly.
"A man came in about six months ago.
Said he was Mr.
Serrano's son and that his father had sent him to retrieve some papers."
Alvin kept his face still.
"What happened?"
"Mr.
Serrano had left specific instructions.
Access required his signature in person, or a notarized letter with a specific code word that only he and I knew." Mr.
Okafor opened the vault door.
"The man who came in didn't have either.
He became quite loud about it." A small pause.
"We asked him to leave."
Alvin followed him into the vault.
"Did he give his name?"
"He gave a name.
I can't share it with you without a court order." Mr.
Okafor set the metal box on the table and stepped back.
"But I will say that Mr.
Serrano called me the next morning and thanked me personally.
He sounded very relieved."
Alvin unlocked the box.
Inside: a brown envelope, thick and sealed.
A smaller white envelope clipped to the top with a paper clip.
And beneath both, a folded sheet of yellow legal paper covered in Manuel's careful, deliberate handwriting.
Alvin opened the yellow sheet first.
*Alvin — if you are reading this, then you came.
I knew you would.
Everything you need is in the brown envelope.
The white envelope is for your mother.
Please give it to her when this is over.
Do not let Derek see it.
— Dad*
Alvin set the yellow sheet aside.
He opened the brown envelope.
Inside: the original deed, dated thirty-eight years ago, with Manuel and Carmen's signatures at the bottom.
A photocopy of the fraudulent transfer document, with both signatures — and a handwritten note in the margin in Manuel's writing: *Carmen did not understand.
I was in the next room.
I heard Veronica tell her it was the tax renewal form.* A copy of the new will.
The insurance policies.
A printed bank statement showing four thousand dollars deposited monthly — Alvin's transfers — and then, starting eight months ago, a new automatic withdrawal of thirty-eight hundred dollars routed to an account Alvin didn't recognize.
He read that last line twice.
Derek had been intercepting the money.
For eight months, Alvin had believed his parents were living comfortably on four thousand dollars a month.
In reality, they had been surviving on two hundred dollars.
Two hundred dollars, a storage shed, and paper plates.
He sat very still for a moment.
Then he took out his phone and photographed every page, front and back.
He placed everything back in the envelope, sealed it, and tucked it under his arm.
"I'll need to take these with me," he told Mr.
Okafor at the door.
"Of course." Mr.
Okafor looked at the envelope, then at Alvin.
"Is Mr.
Serrano all right?"
"He will be," Alvin said.
He meant it.
He was three blocks from the bank when his phone rang.
Not Inez.
Not his parents.
Derek.
Alvin stared at the name on the screen.
His thumb hovered.
He let it ring.
Four times.
Five.
Then it stopped.
A text came through thirty seconds later.
*Hey bro.
Heard you might be in town.
Come by the house — we should catch up.*
Alvin read it once.
Put the phone back in his pocket.
May you like
Derek knew he was here.
The clock had started.
