My office manager appeared at my doorway around ten.
“Caroline, there’s a gentleman here asking for you. Says it’s personal.”
I immediately assumed something was wrong.
Instead, a man in a charcoal suit entered carrying a leather briefcase and a narrow wooden box.
He looked to be in his early sixties, calm and formal, with the manner of someone accustomed to delivering information carefully.
“Ms. Brooks?”
“Yes.”
He offered his hand.
“My name is Jonathan Pierce. I’m an attorney based in Worcester, Massachusetts. I believe I’ve been looking for you for quite some time.”
I gave a nervous laugh.
“That doesn’t sound encouraging.”
He smiled.
“In this case, I believe it is.”
Then he placed the wooden box on my desk and asked a question that made the entire room seem to narrow around me.
“Do you remember a man named Walter Hayes?”
The Box He Had Kept for Me
