“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m sure. I found that file in Fletcher’s office, hidden in a secret desk drawer, as if he didn’t want anyone to discover it ever. That file claims that Deirdre Shaw is Finn’s mother and that she is very much alive.” I paused, once again having to force out the words. “So tonight I went to Blue Ridge Cemetery to dig up her grave to see if she was actually buried in it . . .”
I handed Bria the file, then told her everything that had happened tonight. My sister stayed quiet through my cold, clipped recitation, absorbing and analyzing everything I said as she read through Fletcher’s file.
By the time I was finished, she’d gone through all the information. She studied a recent photo of Deirdre in the file, then leaned down, staring at the rune Fletcher had inked onto the folder tab, that heart made of jagged icicles.
Bria frowned and tapped her finger against the symbol. “This might sound crazy, and it’s certainly not going to make you feel any better, but I’ve seen that rune somewhere before.”
“Yeah, it was on that letter you found in Pike’s penthouse. The one you gave to Lorelei Parker, along with the rest of her half brother’s stuff. Lorelei gave me a copy of it. There was no name on the letter, just that rune. I recognized the symbol and started digging through Fletcher’s files. That’s how I found the information on Deirdre.”
Bria shook her head. “No, I’ve seen that rune somewhere else. I thought it looked familiar when I first saw Pike’s letter. So I did a search in the police rune databases, trying to figure out where I knew it from. But there was no mention of anything like it in the databases, so I wasn’t able to track it down. Still, I know it from somewhere.”
I chewed my lip, trying to think of where Bria might have possibly come across Deirdre’s rune before, but of course, I didn’t have an answer. She was right. Her having seen the rune before made me even more uneasy.
“So what’s in the box?” Bria asked. “And why did Fletcher leave it in Deirdre’s grave?”
“Time to find out.”
I dragged the box to the edge of the table. No locks or latches adorned the silverstone, but it was still securely sealed. So I palmed a knife and worked the tip of the blade into the seam that ran between the lid and the rest of the box. I ran my knife around the entire seam, wiggling the tip back and forth. It didn’t want to open any more than Deirdre’s casket had, but I finally managed to split the seam. A loud pop sounded, like when you cracked open a pickle jar, as though the box had been vacuum-sealed. Maybe it had been.
I put my knife down, grabbed the lid, and lifted it off the box before setting it off to one side. Beside me, Bria leaned forward, as curious to see what was inside as I was.
The answer?
Photos.
Dozens of photos, all of them old, slightly yellow, and faded, with smooth, worn edges, as though someone—Fletcher—had rubbed his fingers over them time and time again in thought.
And Deirdre Shaw was in every single one of them.
In the photos, she was young, twenty or so, and quite beautiful, with pale blue eyes and long golden hair. The first photo showed her in a grassy field, wearing a blue sundress, with a crown of blue peonies perched on her head, as though she were a fairy-tale princess. She looked at the camera out of the corner of her eye, as if she were too shy to enjoy having her picture taken, although her lips were turned up into a small, satisfied smile.
The next few photos were of Deirdre and Fletcher together, holding hands, walking through the woods, even sharing a chocolate milkshake at the Pork Pit. It was obvious that this was in the beginning of their relationship, because they were staring dreamily into each other’s eyes. They made a lovely couple, Deirdre slim, blond, and beautiful, Fletcher tall, strong, and handsome, with his dark brown hair and green eyes.
But as I looked through more of the photos, they slowly started to change.
Fletcher remained as happy as ever, but Deidre smiled less and less in the pictures, especially as her stomach grew larger and rounder, and it became apparent that she was pregnant. One shot showed Deirdre deep into her pregnancy. Fletcher had his arm slung around her shoulder and was smiling at the camera, but Deirdre’s expression seemed more like a grimace than a grin, as though she had screwed on a smile just to have her picture taken.
And finally, I saw the first and only photo of Finn.
It must have been taken a few days after he was born, because he was just a tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle, cradled in Fletcher’s arms, his sleeping face turned toward the camera. Fletcher was positively beaming, his face stretched into an enormous grin. Deirdre was standing next to him, looking at Finn, but her eyes were empty, and her face was strangely blank, as though she were staring at someone else’s baby instead of her own son.