Claire tore the ribbon from the bouquet with shaking fingers.
Nothing fell out.
She pulled apart the stems until white roses scattered across the courtyard.
Daniel crouched beside her.
“Claire, slow down.”
“My father is speaking to me from six years ago and everyone except me seems to know what he means.”
Then Daniel saw it.
A tiny brass key taped inside the hollow handle beneath the flowers.
Claire stared at it in her palm.
Elaine covered her mouth.
Richard turned away.
Daniel noticed.
“You know what it opens.”
Richard said nothing.
Claire stepped toward him. “Tell me.”
“It won’t help you.”
“Neither did letting me stand at an altar while your family’s secret destroyed my wedding.”
Richard looked at her then.
“The key opens a deposit box at First Atlantic Bank.”
Claire’s heart raced. “How do you know?”
“Because I put something in it.”
Daniel stared at his father.
“What?”
Richard’s shoulders seemed to age in a single second.
“Evidence that your mother caused the accident.”
The words landed without context.
Daniel whispered, “What accident?”
Richard looked toward him.
“The one that killed Claire’s father.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Elaine made a broken sound behind her.
Daniel grabbed his father by the lapels.
“You told me he died in a highway collision.”
“He did.”
“You just said Mom caused it.”
Richard pushed Daniel’s hands away.
“She didn’t mean to kill him.”
Claire backed up until she hit the stone wall.
Six years of grief rearranged itself inside her.
Her father had not died in a random crash.
And Daniel’s family had known.
Richard looked at Claire.
“If you open that box, you will destroy more than one family.”
Claire closed her fingers around the key.
“Then maybe those families were built on something that deserved to be destroyed.”