“Nothing,” she said sharply. “Leave her dignity intact.”
I bent over the coffin.
Mother grabbed my arm. “Daniel, stop.”
I looked at her hand on my sleeve, then at her eyes. “Take your hand off me.”
She obeyed.
Emily’s fingers were stiff, but not impossible to move. Beneath her nails were tiny crescent cuts, as though she had fought to keep her fist closed. I gently worked her thumb loose.
A small black memory card slid into my palm.
Caleb’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“What is that?” he demanded.
I closed my fist around it. “You tell me.”
Mother recovered first. “Probably something from her phone. She was obsessed with recording everything. Pregnancy made her paranoid.”
Upstairs, the baby cried again.
I straightened and forced my face empty. Rage was useful only when controlled. Before deployment, I had transferred the house into a military family trust that only I could authorize. I had also given Emily access to my encrypted evidence vault because she feared my mother was stealing from us.
They thought I was a grieving soldier with no idea how civilian paperwork worked.
They had forgotten I was an intelligence warrant officer.
I slipped the card into the hidden pocket inside my uniform.
Then I looked at my mother and said, “Tell me exactly how my wife died.”
Choose your next words carefully, Mother, because your freedom may depend on them
