LILY DIDN’T sleep.
She lay on her side, staring at the faint c***k in the ceiling where the paint had once peeled, her mind looping endlessly back to the photo burned into her memory. The man’s face. The way snow had blurred the edges, as if the world itself didn’t want her to see him clearly.
Alive.
Her chest tightened every time the thought surfaced. She had lived years believing the past had closed its fist and loosened its grip on her life. That whatever ghosts haunted her childhood had been buried alongside her father.
She had been wrong.
A soft knock sounded at the door just after dawn. Lily stiffened, pulse jumping, before Jeremiah’s voice followed.
“Lily. It’s me.”
She pushed herself upright, arms wrapping around her middle. “Come in.”
He stepped inside quietly, already dre
