there first,” I said.
He did not argue.
My parents’ graves were near the back fence beneath a maple tree. Someone had placed artificial lilies in the vase. They were faded by sun and rain until the petals looked bruised.
I knelt in the grass.
“Hi, Mom,” I whispered. “Hi, Dad.”
The words were too small for everything I had carried across continents.
My mother, Elise, had smelled like vanilla soap and library dust. My father, Jonah, had sung badly in the car and fixed every broken appliance with confidence he rarely deserved. They had died when a delivery truck slid through a red light on a wet October evening. That was what I had been told. That was what the police report said. That was what Aunt Marla repeated whenever anyone asked too many questions.
A tragic accident.
A terrible night.
A family destroyed.
I pressed my palm against my mother’s name carved in stone and thought of the letters she would never read.
Mr. Henson stood a few feet away, giving me privacy without leaving me alone.
When I stood, he said, “There’s more.”
I looked at him.
He opened the truck door but did not get in. “Your mother came to see me two days before she died. She asked if my nephew still worked at the credit union.”
“Why?”
“She said something was wrong with the church account.”
The air changed.
A cicada buzzed in the maple tree, loud and electric.
“What kind of wrong?” I asked.
“She didn’t say. She looked scared. Not of numbers. Of someone.”
I thought of Aunt Marla at the funeral, perfect in black, her hand locked around my elbow so tightly she left half-moon marks on my skin.
You belong with us now, Lena. Your parents would want you to listen.
The memory made my mouth go dry.
Mr. Henson drove toward my aunt’s house after that. He said we should go to the police station first. I said no. Not because I was brave, but because I needed to see her face before anyone else arranged the truth into paperwork.
We had not even reached the corner before his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and frowned.
“Unknown number.”
He put it on speaker.
A dispatcher’s calm voice filled the cab. “Mr. Henson, are you currently transporting Lena Hart?”
His eyes flicked to mine.
“Yes.”
“We received a call from Marla Whitcomb stating Miss Hart is on her way to her property and may be dangerous.”
My skin went cold.
Mr. Henson’s jaw tightened. “Dangerous how?”
“She reported threats.”
“I made no threats,” I said loudly.
The dispatcher paused. “Officers are en route. Please remain where you are.”
But by then we had turned onto Foxglove Lane.
Aunt Marla’s house waited at the end of the block, green paint, white trim, rosebushes crowding the porch steps. The same brass fox knocker stared from the front door with its polished little eyes.
Every blind was closed.
“Stay behind me,” Mr. Henson said as he parked by the curb. He reached for his cane. “Your uncle just told dispatch you came back to hurt them.”
“I came back with papers,” I said.
“That may be what scares them.”
Neighbors stepped onto porches. Mrs. Dallow from the bakery crossed the street
