My mouth went dry.
Maya nodded to me. “Slowly.”
With Owen holding the bear firmly, Lily guided the zipper tab into a nearly invisible track beneath the seam.
It opened.
Inside was a narrow pocket.
And inside that pocket was a folded piece of paper wrapped around a small silver flash drive.
No one spoke.
Owen looked terrified.
I looked at him first, not the drive.
“You did nothing wrong.”
He nodded, but his chin shook.
Elise put on gloves before touching anything. Carefully, she unfolded the paper.
There were only six words on the outside.
In Evan Bennett’s handwriting.
If I disappear, find Ryker Steel.
The room tilted.
Elise turned the paper over.
There was more writing inside, cramped and hurried.
Ryker,
If this reaches you, I failed to keep the storm away from my children. I found something connected to Anna, Claire, and the accounts I once warned you about. It is not what it looks like. The children are not safe with anyone who benefits from my silence.
Trust Nathan if he comes clean.
Do not trust the death certificate without the original file.
And please, if there is anything decent left between the man I met years ago and the man they say you became, help my children know they were loved.
My hands had gone numb.
Elise looked at me, all color drained from her face.
Maya whispered, “What death certificate?”
But I could not answer.
Because beneath Evan’s message, tucked into the fold, was a photograph.
A woman stood on a beach with windblown hair and a baby in each arm.
Anna.
The twins’ mother.
On the back, written in the same hurried hand, was a date from only eight months ago.
Eight months ago.
Not years.
Not when the twins were babies.
Eight months ago, Anna Bennett had been alive.
And in the corner of the photograph, half-hidden behind her shoulder, stood Claire Bennett.
Smiling.
