The Last Voicemail
Three months after burying her mother, Nia receives a voicemail from her number at 2:17 a.m. The message leads to a hidden key, a storage unit—and a secret that changes everything.
By Erica T. Capri
Three months had passed since Nia Carter buried her mother, and she was finally beginning to understand what people meant when they said grief came in waves. Some mornings she could wake up, make coffee, go to work, laugh at something stupid on her phone, and almost feel normal. Other days, she'd reach for her phone to call her mother before remembering there was nobody on the other end anymore.
That night had been one of the better ones. Nia had fallen asleep on the couch with the television playing quietly in the background, an empty wineglass on the coffee table and her mother's old knitted blanket pulled across her legs.
At exactly 2:17 a.m., her phone rang.
The sound startled her awake. She reached blindly across the couch cushions, but by the time she found the phone, the call had ended.
Nia squinted at the screen.
Then she sat straight up.
MOM.
For several seconds, she simply stared.
“No,” she whispered.
Her mother's number had been disconnected weeks after the funeral. Nia knew because she'd called it one night just to hear the voicemail greeting again. Instead, she'd gotten a recording saying the number was no longer in service.
She unlocked the phone and opened her recent calls.
Mom — Missed Call — 2:17 a.m.
Her heart began pounding.
“This isn't funny.”
She called the number back.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
Nia immediately hung up.
“Okay. Glitch. That's all.”
She was trying to convince herself when her phone vibrated again.
New Voicemail.
Nia stopped breathing.
For nearly a minute, she couldn't make herself touch it. Then she pressed play and slowly lifted the phone to her ear.
Static.
Nothing else.
Nia almost laughed from relief.
Then she heard a voice.
“Nia, baby…”
The phone nearly slipped from her hand.
Her mother's voice.
Not somebody who sounded like her.
Not an old recording Nia vaguely remembered.
Her mother.
“Nia, baby, if you're hearing this, something went wrong.”
Nia covered her mouth.
“Mom?”
She knew how ridiculous it was to answer a recording, but the word escaped anyway.
“I don't have much time to explain,” her mother continued. “I need you to listen to me carefully. Go to my bedroom. There's a picture of you and your brother on the dresser. Look behind it. You'll find a key.”
There was a long pause.
Then her mother's voice returned, quieter this time.
“Whatever you do, don't tell Andre.”
The message ended.
Nia sat frozen on the couch.
Andre was her older brother.
He'd been the strong one when their mother died. He'd handled the funeral home, the insurance company, the bills and almost everything involving the estate. When Nia couldn't bring herself to clean out their mother's house, Andre told her not to worry about it.
He would take care of everything.
And he had.
So why would their mother tell Nia not to trust him?
Nia listened to the voicemail again.
Then a third time.
By 2:46 a.m., she was dressed and driving across town.
Her mother's house looked exactly as it had the last time she'd been there. The porch light was off. Curtains covered the windows, and several pieces of mail were sticking out of the mailbox.
Nia hadn't been inside since the funeral.
The moment she opened the front door, the smell hit her.
Her mother's house.
Vanilla candles. Fabric softener. That cinnamon air freshener she'd bought no matter how many times Nia told her it smelled like Christmas year-round.
Nia swallowed hard.
“I'm not doing this tonight,” she whispered to herself.
She went directly upstairs.
Her mother's bedroom door was partially open. Nia pushed it wider and turned on the light.
Everything was still there.
Her mother's robe hung from the back of the door. A half-empty bottle of perfume sat on the dresser. Her Bible rested beside the bed.
And there was the photograph.
Nia walked toward it slowly.
She and Andre had taken the picture at their mother's sixtieth birthday dinner. Andre stood behind Nia with one arm wrapped around her shoulders while Nia made a face at the camera.
She picked up the frame.
Nothing.
For one second, she felt ridiculous.
Then she turned it over.
A small brass key had been taped to the back.
Nia's stomach dropped.
“What the hell?”
She pulled it free.
It wasn't a house key. It was too small.
She searched the dresser drawers, the closet and even underneath the bed, but she couldn't find anything the key might open.
At 4:03 a.m., Nia finally went home.
She didn't sleep.
Andre called around nine that morning.
She stared at his name until the phone stopped ringing.
A few seconds later, he texted.
You okay?
Nia typed yes.
Deleted it.
Typed just tired.
Deleted that too.
Finally, she locked the phone without answering.
At 10:17 a.m., another voicemail appeared.
There had been no call this time.
Just the voicemail.
Nia pressed play.
“If you found the key, I need you to go to 814 Preston Road. Ask for Unit 217.”
Her mother's voice sounded different in this recording. Nervous.
“And Nia?”
A pause.
“Don't call your brother.”
The message ended.
Nia grabbed her purse.
