It wasn’t just the shape. It wasn’t just the shade of green. It was the tiny carved leaves—those little engraved veins so fine they looked like lace.
And if my eyes hadn’t already believed, my hands had.
The hinge existed. The locket opened. The floral pattern inside was the exact same.
There was no room for “maybe.”
By the time the sun came up, I had made two decisions.
First: I was going to confront Claire’s father again, but I wasn’t doing it on the phone. Phones made it too easy to hang up. I wanted to watch his face. I wanted his body to betray him the way his voice already had.
Second: I was bringing proof.
I printed three photos at the little drugstore kiosk down the road. It felt almost ridiculous—standing there with sleepy eyes and a USB drive, selecting pictures like I was making a collage—until the printer spit out my mother’s face in glossy color.
There she was, wearing the necklace in three different decades.
I held the photos in my hands and felt something rise in my chest that wasn’t just grief.
It was ownership.
That necklace belonged to her.
The ground had been supposed to keep it safe.
At noon, I drove to Claire’s father’s house.
Will had mentioned it casually at dinner—a tidy place in a quiet neighborhood across town. The kind of neighborhood where grass was always trimmed and no one left bikes out overnight. I’d never been there before. I’d never needed to be.
Now I parked at the curb and sat for a second, my heart hammering. The photos were in a plain manila envelope on my passenger seat. My palms were damp.
I told myself, You are not crazy.
I told myself, You are not imagining this.
I told myself, Your mother’s dead. She can’t defend herself. So you will.
I walked up the path and rang the bell.
The door opened after a beat.
Claire’s father—Richard Lawson, I reminded myself—stood there in a crisp button-down like he’d been waiting for someone important. His hair was silver at the temples. His eyes were sharp.
He looked like the kind of man who’d learned to stay calm in boa
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