By Jim Doran

Of course, Ethel would have a lockpick in the heel of her shoe. And, of course, she would use it to pick the lock of the metallic box she had found under a panel in her parents’ closet. What would you expect from a Grieves?

People on the street only whispered “Grieves,” as if saying the mob family’s name aloud could summon them. If a Grieves interrupted your day, it was often your last. Especially Ethel. The youngest Grieves’s kill rate was perfect because a self-inflicted bullet never missed.

Ethel was always best at cleaning up pesky “family matters.”

Ethel shouldn’t have been in her parents’ room, but she was always where she shouldn’t have been. She never had enough incriminating information on those closest to her. She had two pieces on each brother and a prison-worthy photograph of her father. But her mother? She never found anything on her mother. Whatever was inside the box might be the first piece of collateral to hold over her.

She wouldn’t betray her family—at least, she wouldn’t betray them first. The pieces she collected were break-glass-in-case-of-emergency material. “Born together, die together” was the Grieves motto, one Ethel took to heart.

The key lock was older than Ethel’s sixteen years. It clicked open like a cocked gun. Stone-faced, she opened the container.

She didn’t hate her family. Her father adored her, likely planning to pass the torch to her one day. Her mother, Ruby, had always wanted a girl but never treated her like a ball-gown-wearing daughter. She had ensured Ethel had the fortitude required of a crime princess.

The locked box contained papers that Ethel recognized. She straightened her thick-lensed glasses, leaned forward, and cast aside her pursuit of evidence to hold over her mother. What she reached for was much better. The papers weren’t her mother’s. They were—

Hers?

Mother had given young Ethel a journal to record her thoughts. She had instructed Ethel to write in the book, telling her the paper was magic and the ink would make her fantasies come alive. Ethel had wondered about the first few missing pages, but Mother had said those pages contained the spell that made the journal special.

Lies, of course. No magic ink. Her mother had laughed when Ethel asked her about it later. “Learn a lesson from this, child. Trust no one.”

With Mother’s cruel words ringing in her ears, Ethel had almost thrown the journal away. The book hadn’t been magical. The missing pages had been some other idiot’s wandering thoughts.

But Ethel had a different idea. When someone hands you a lemon, squirt it on ants to kill them. The juice is a natural pesticide—a fact she had documented in her journal. What Ethel had recorded on those pages over the years made the book magical. She had transcribed how she had entered locked rooms, how her fingerprints were a dead girl’s, and where Patrick “The Rat” was buried. The ink was magic. Black magic. And it recorded her most secret family matters.

Ethel had rarely thought about the missing pages. But surprise, surprise. They were in her hands now. The design on the top margin was unmistakable. Someone had printed their thoughts on both sides. Peering through the bottom of her bifocals, she skimmed the initial entry.

It was a mother’s journal.

The printing wasn’t Ruby’s perfectly formed letters. Whose was this?

The journal’s author, Margarite Lawson, was unwed with a newborn baby. “She’s so pretty,” “I already love her,” and more sentimental, nauseating sentences littered the pages. She flipped the first page to read the back and froze.

Not much surprised Ethel. One sentence, however, knocked the breath out of her.

I’m worried my baby’s left leg is a bit longer than her right.

Ethel examined her own legs splayed out on the floor, her right shoe with the lockpick heel. The footwear added height to her shorter right limb.

Returning to the papers, she absorbed every word. On the last page, Margarite mentioned a woman watching her from her limousine, a wealthy woman dripping with jewelry, a woman who eerily resembled her. Ethel read, “What does she want? I have nothing.”

Ethel gripped the paper, deep in thought, but not for long. Consulting her phone, she searched and found how Margarite was murdered in her home, her baby taken. She tucked the pages in the box, locked it, and returned it to its hidden compartment.

Entering her room, Ethel spied her stuffed ragdoll cat, Fresco. Had the toy been hers from her birth mother? Ruby had always hated the thing. She grabbed it and slit it open, an idea forming.

Fifteen minutes later, Ethel scooted beneath the dining room table with the toy. There, she kissed Fresco goodbye and set the doll on the floor.

Shortly afterward, Ethel exited her penthouse building, adjusting her backpack. The doorman spied her and asked if he should call for her driver. She waved him off, saying she would take public transportation.

After boarding a bus, Ethel pondered the mother she never had. The life denied to her and the life she had in its place. In thirty minutes, the rest of the Grieves would gather. They’d come together for their usual Saturday night dinner. The butler would remove her place setting once they read the note she had left behind. The rest of the family would discuss crime over lobster bisque. And the recorder inside Fresco would take down every detail. The Grieves’ enemies would be well-informed of their deeds later tonight.

Ethel’s true mother meant more to her than her current one. After all, family matters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Doran is a genre writer who enjoys transporting his readers into worlds of wonder, mystery, and danger. From fairytale hijinks (his Kingdom Fantasy series) to cunning crime princesses, he aims to entertain his audience with every word. Jim’s YA horror novel entitled Forlorn Harbor will be published by Rowan Prose Publishing in 2026. When he’s not writing, he’s enjoying the seasons in Michigan, U.S.

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