Soon both children were laughing on top of him, and Marco looked away quickly.
I pretended not to notice his eyes had gone wet.
That afternoon, Owen handed me a dandelion.
It was half crushed.
“For your office,” he said.
“My office may not deserve something this nice.”
“Then put it somewhere else.”
“Good advice.”
Lily ran up with three more. “You need a family of flowers.”
I took them carefully.
That night, I placed all four dandelions in a glass of water on my kitchen island.
They looked absurd there beneath the modern pendant lights, surrounded by marble, steel, and silence.
They also looked like the first honest decoration the place had ever had.
The flash drive report came in on a rainy Tuesday.
Elise called me to her office instead of coming to mine.
That alone told me enough.
Her conference room had glass walls and a view of the river. The sky beyond was low and pewter-colored, and the water below moved in restless dark folds.
A forensic analyst sat beside her with a laptop closed in front of him.
Maya was present by video. So was a representative from the court-appointed team. Everything was formal, documented, careful.
I sat.
Elise began without preamble.
“The drive contains financial records, scanned documents, audio files, and a video message from Evan.”
