For six years, it had hung behind the portrait while Rowan lived beneath lies.
Claire began to cry quietly near the fireplace. Evelyn stood frozen, all her elegance stripped down to dread.
Rowan folded the letter and placed it in his pocket beside the note about Lily.
“I’m going to the cottage,” he said.
Evelyn stepped forward. “Rowan, wait.”
He stopped at the doorway but did not turn.
“You don’t know what you’ll ruin.”
This time, he did look back.
“No,” he said. “I know exactly what I’m going to save.”
Priya met him at the old caretaker’s cottage thirty minutes later with two private investigators and a retired judge named Malcolm Reed, who wore a raincoat over pajamas and carried a flashlight like a sword.
The orchard had gone wild over the years. Branches scraped against the cottage windows. The air smelled of damp leaves and old earth. Rowan unlocked the warped door with his father’s key, and they stepped into a room untouched by time.
