Chloe watched, then nodded with satisfaction.
“Now I can keep it.”
Gavin set the pencil down.
A strange peace moved through him—not complete, not simple, but real. His daughter had carried fear for years, and now she was learning to put it somewhere outside herself: in words, in drawings, in truth.
Maybe that was how people survived.
Not by becoming unbroken.
By finding places to set the broken pieces down.
While Gavin and Chloe rebuilt a small corner of their relationship, Amelia followed the new thread into Martin Keller’s past.
Lake Briar was an hour and a half from town, a quiet place of pine trees, aging docks, and water that reflected the sky like polished slate. Martin’s old cabin sat at the end of a gravel road, partly hidden by trees. The county had sealed it after Amelia’s discovery of the cassette, but the porch still sagged, and wind moved through the dry weeds around the steps.
