Page 99 of One Last Promise

From the outside, the banker opened it.

“All done?”

“Thank you,” Tillie said and marched past him. Didn’t even look at Moose, although she saw him pocket his phone as she walked out into the brisk morning air.

Only then did she take a breath, the air crisp and smelling of autumn, the scent of loam in the air.

Moose had followed her out, of course, and now touched her elbow. “Keep moving.”

Right.

She stood and headed with him to the truck. Slid into the seat, then while she strapped in, he put the truck in reverse and pulledout.

“You look pale.”

She pulled off the hijab. “The money is gone.”

He glanced over at her. “What?”

“The money. It’s gone.” She unzipped her bag and pulled out the phone. “Just this and an envelope.”

She tried to power on the phone, but it was dead. “We’ll need a charger.”

“Look in the glove box,” he said, and turned onto Minnesota Drive, heading north.

She opened the box and found the neatest, most organized glove box she’d ever seen. And a number of USB charging cables.

“I keep a few in there—never sure what I’ll need.”

She found an old USB C and plugged it into Pearl’s Android phone and then into Moose’s console. The phone’s face lit up, the battery indicating zero. “It’ll take a few minutes.”

“Open the envelope.” He turned onto Northern Lights Boulevard.

“Where are you going?”

“Trust me.”

Her mouth tightened. She pulled out the envelope. Her name was scrawled on the front, and she recognized Roz’s handwriting.

The return address was an insurance company—Guardian of Alaska.

She opened it just as Moose pulled onto a side street. Looking up, she recognized Turnagain Parkway. “Are we going to Roz’s?”

“Nope. What’s that?”

She pulled out a piece of letterhead, the name of the company embossed on the front, the letter addressed to her, and she must have made a little noise because?—

“Tillie. You okay?”

“It’s a life insurance policy.”

He had braked at a stop sign and now looked over at her. “A lifeinsurance policy?”

“It’s a cover letter that outlines a whole life insurance policy. It’s taken out on Roz, but Hazel’s the beneficiary.”

He went through the stop sign, continued along Turnagain. “So Pearl took the money and put it in a whole life policy? Why not herself?”

“Probably they wouldn’t approve her, since she had cancer.”

---