Emily looked back at the phone. The picture of Caroline and Linda seemed to glow from the screen, a window into a room everyone had locked and abandoned.
“Did Mom’s death have anything to do with this?”
The question landed between them with a force neither expected.
Dad’s face changed.
Emily stood slowly. “Dad?”
“No,” he said, but there was no confidence in it. Only pain. “Your mother died in a car accident. The roads were icy. The investigation was clear.”
“Was it?”
He looked at her as though she had opened a door he had spent years pretending was a wall.
Before he could answer, his phone buzzed again.
Emily startled.
Another message appeared from the unknown number.
This time, it was a line of text.
CHECK THE YELLOW RECIPE BOX.
Emily lifted her eyes.
The yellow recipe box had belonged to her mother.
It sat on the top shelf of the pantry, untouched for years except when Emily wanted to make her mother’s lemon cake. The paint was chipped near one corner. A tiny sunflower decal curled at the edge. Caroline had written recipes on index cards in loopy blue ink, with notes in the margins like James likes extra pepper or Emily steals the frosting.
