PART 2
The rusted key lay in Ava’s palm like a piece of evidence pulled from a grave.
PROPERTY OF NOAH WHITAKER.
My name.
My brother’s secret.
A key I had never touched in my life.
For a few seconds, no one in the auditorium moved. The great hall that had once swallowed applause now held only the small, broken sounds of my nieces trying not to cry. Hundreds of students, parents, professors, and guests watched us as if we had become part of the ceremony’s entertainment—except there was nothing entertaining about watching three young women realize their dead father might not have been the monster they had spent their childhood mourning.
And watching me realize I might have been the fool.
I stepped closer to Ava.
