under the table and become fourteen again.
She did not.
She wanted one person in Calder Ridge to have chosen her mother when it mattered.
No one had.
So Lily chose her.
She packed the evidence.
Not everything.
Too much paper would slow her down.
She took photographs, ledgers, the letter, the VHS tape, the cassettes, and the cashier’s check.
Then she heard the sound.
A faint metallic scrape.
Above her.
Lily clicked off the lantern.
Darkness swallowed the room.
She stood still.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
Voices traveled down
