Chapter 4

Naomi took a slow breath, picked up the box, and walked back into Jude's room, turning the deadbolt behind her.

Jude sat up in bed, watching silently as Naomi worked a hairpin into the damaged lock until it popped open.

She lifted the velvet lining.

Inside sat a folded, yellowed paper—an emergency room report from thirteen years ago under her maiden name, listing a bullet extraction from her left shoulder—and her jagged piece of silver.

The medical report placed her right in the middle of the shooting.

The jagged metal matched the exact curve of the pendant around Tabitha's neck.

Jude leaned closer, touching the tarnished silver with a finger. "This looks like Miss Cross's necklace."

He brushed his small hand against the faint scar on Naomi's shoulder blade. "Is this where you got hurt?"

"A long time ago, Jude," Naomi whispered, pulling him into her lap. "I helped someone in the dark, but someone else took credit for it."

Jude looked at the metal again. "Was it Daddy?"

Naomi held him tight, refusing to pour her bitterness into her son's heart.

She knew if she took this silver half to Garrett right now, he would only see it as a desperate attempt by a jealous wife to sabotage his "savior."

A man who could be fooled by a stolen story would never believe a piece of metal without undeniable proof.

She wouldn't beg for his faith. She would let the truth break him when the time was right.

Naomi took a sewing kit from the bedside drawer, opened a few stitches along her coat's inner seam, slipped the silver piece securely between the layers of heavy canvas, and sewed the opening shut.

Then, she grabbed a plain velvet pouch, stuffed a solid copper coin inside, and set the pouch back inside the brass box on her dresser.

She returned the hospital report to the hidden panel in the rosewood vanity, beside the remaining pages of her college journal.

Mrs. Gable tapped gently on the door and stepped in. "Mrs. Whitmore, I put Jude's boots by the door for tomorrow."

"Thank you, Mrs. Gable," Naomi said. "Could you sit with Jude while I clear out my dressing room?"

Naomi walked back into her suite and stepped into the adjoining dressing room.

Suddenly, a sharp footstep echoed in the bedroom.

Before she could turn around, Captain Lyle grabbed the heavy oak door, slammed it shut, and slid the antique brass bolt into place from the outside!

"Lyle!" Naomi hit the wood with her palm. "Open this door!"

Out in the hall, seven-year-old Jude had slipped out of his room with his mother's travel mug.

Hiding behind the velvet hallway curtain, he peeked through the gap in the doorframe.

Lyle was rushing over to Naomi's open suitcase on the bed, unzipping the side pocket to slide in a burner phone and a leather folder stamped with northern route codes.

As he moved, his sleeve caught on the metal zipper, snapping off a dark cufflink engraved with Captain Lyle's personal crest. It rolled across the rug.

Lyle didn't notice.

He snatched the velvet pouch off the dresser, stepped out into the hall, and locked the bedroom door behind him.

Jude waited until the heavy boots faded down the stairs.

Crouching low, he ran silently across the room, grabbed the cufflink off the floor, and stuffed it into his pajama pocket.

Through the keyhole of the dressing room door, Jude pointed urgently at her trunk pocket, then toward the stairs where Lyle had disappeared, pressing one finger to his lips.

Naomi's blood ran cold.

Lyle hadn't come to search her room. He had come to plant evidence.