Whose Angel Keyring Read Online Free PDF Page A

to make a new start. To keep things simple, I’ll just say I am grateful for all our good times, and I’m sorry for our bad times.
    As to the enclosed—I found it in one of the boxes I used to pack my belongings at your house. I’ve never seen it before and can’t imagine how it got mixed up with my things. I’m very sorry if it’s something you’ve been looking for.
    Merry Christmas, Zackery. Take good care ,
    Cynthia

    Zack sat in morose silence. In the more than two years he’d known her, he’d never sensed the self-possessed calm and aloof independence permeating her letter. Swamped with shame that he’d assumed her note would be some sort of plea to win him back, he tried his best to let it become a window into a more sparkling Cynthia than the one he thought he knew.

    James bustled into the den to stoke the fire and clear dishes. After adding a log and stirring the embers back to life, he gathered cups and saucers. As he lifted the heavy silver tray, he brought his eyes to bear on Zackery, who seemed transfixed by Miss Cynthia’s letter. “Shall I bring some more tea, Mr—” James broke off in mid-sentence, his eyes fastened on the key ring dangling from Zackery’s finger.
    Balancing the tray before the china went shattering to the floor, James excused himself and rushed back to the kitchen. As the tray clattered to the kitchen counter, he exhaled and clutched the butcher-block edge for support.
    The key! his mind shouted. In Miss Cynthia’s letter!
    Wildly casting about for theories, James leapt at the idea that he himself must have dropped it in Master Zackery’s cottage. But that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t as though he carried the key around with him. It had a permanent home in the miniature chest of drawers on his own desk.
    What the key opened was, of course, hidden in plain sight. That had been Mrs. C.’s idea. She wanted to write her son a letter, something special to be read years later. She’d suggested placing it in the base of the family clock.
    A handsome piece carved from mahogany, the large mantel clock rested on a base that disguised a locking compartment. Two keyholes adorned the front of the clock: into the top hole,   the winding key was inserted once a week; the bottom keyhole was never used. Since James was the keeper of all the keys—and the winder of the clock—it made sense he’d been given the second key as well, the one that sealed the secret compartment.
    But how did the key ever leave my desk?
    Of course ! James pinched the bridge of his nose. When the photographers from Architectural Digest had visited the estate last year, they’d moved things around. It had taken him weeks to replace chairs in their proper rooms, paperweights on the correct desks . . . . That had to be it. They’d wanted to move his miniature chest to Mr. Zackery’s cottage. They’d completed their photography sessions and brought it back. But somewhere during the process, the key ring must have fallen out. Then last month, when Miss Cynthia cleared out her belongings, she’d swept it up un-aware.
    “ Sometime it will show itself .” Mrs. C.’s words came back to him as though she were speaking them now. “ When it does, that’ll be the time .”
    Perhaps she’d been right all those years ago.
    Image
    When Zackery walked into the kitchen, James wasn’t surprised. Meeting his eyes with an even gaze, he waited for the question, knowing it would come.
    “Do you recognize this?”
    James nodded.
    “Know what it opens?”
    So many times through the years James had scripted this very scene. Master Zackery would ask, and James would have a thoughtful, reasoned reply. Somehow all those predetermined words fled, now that the moment had arrived.  
    “Something special was put aside for you, Zackery.”
    “By whom?”
    James paused one more final moment before divulging the secret he’d held so many years. “Your mother.”
    Zack inhaled sharply, and his eyes bored into