The pale-blue lining was still there.
So was the photograph showing the three of them at the beach.
But the compartments that once held jewelry were nearly empty.
Two velvet pouches remained.
One contained a broken chain.
The other held a small shell Nia had collected during a family vacation.
Marcus looked toward the letters.
Several were missing.
He carefully checked the labeled envelopes.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Then the sequence stopped.
The envelope for twelve was gone.
So were several later ones.
He felt his hands begin to tremble.
He remembered his wife writing those letters.
Sitting at the kitchen table.
Taking breaks when she became tired.
Then returning because she wanted Nia to have something of her voice in the years ahead.
Marcus lifted the fabric lining gently.
A narrow compartment beneath it held a folded piece of paper.
He recognized his wife's handwriting.
It was a list she'd written for him, describing the contents of the chest.
The necklace.
The earrings.
The bracelet.
The birthday envelopes.
A photograph album.
And a small collection of postcards from places she'd visited with Nia.
At the bottom was a sentence.
Please let her choose when she's ready to open each one.
Marcus stared at the words.
Then lowered his head.
His wife had trusted him.
And he had delegated too much of that trust without checking what happened afterward.
He spent the next hour photographing the contents exactly as he found them and comparing the chest with the old estate inventory.
Several items were missing.
Some had substantial financial value.
Others were worth almost nothing.
But the pattern disturbed him.
The most valuable jewelry was gone.
The birthday letters were missing.
And several photographs had been removed from their envelopes.
He checked the small household safe in his bedroom.
It contained passports, insurance records, and a few items of jewelry belonging to Vanessa.
None of Nia's mother's pieces were there.
Marcus felt anger rising.
But he forced himself to slow down.
He couldn't assume every missing object had been sold.
Some might have been moved.
Some might have been in storage.
And others could be recovered through the pawnshop transactions Caleb photographed.
He needed an accurate list.
Then he entered his home office.
His computer held old scans of the estate records, photographs of the jewelry, and correspondence with the attorney.
He began organizing them.
As he worked, he noticed something else.
An email from Nia's school counselor.
It was almost six weeks old.
The subject line concerned a change in the girl's behavior.