Mark covered his mouth with his hand.
“I don’t know if I can fix what I broke,” he said.
“You can’t fix the past.”
“I know.”
“But you can decide who you become next.”
He looked at her then, and for the first time, he did not ask whether she would come home.
He asked, “What do you need from me?”
Emily seemed to exhale a weight she had carried for years.
“Consistency. Honesty. Patience. And no Madison. Not in calls, not in messages, not through friends, not as an explanation. Gone means gone.”
“She’s gone.”
Emily’s gaze sharpened slightly.
“Is she?”
“Yes.”
Before Mark could say more, Emily’s phone buzzed.
She glanced down.
Her face changed.
Not dramatically. Not enough that a stranger would notice.
But Mark noticed.
“What is it?” he asked.
She turned the phone facedown.
“Nothing.”
“Emily.”
She stood carefully.
“I need to go.”
“Did something happen with the girls?”
“They’re fine.”
But her voice had thinned.
Mark stood too, keeping distance.
“Then what happened?”
Emily looked at him for a long moment.
The wind lifted loose strands of hair around her face.
“I received something this morning,” she said.
“What?”
“A letter.”
His stomach tightened.
“From Madison?”
Emily shook her head.
“No.”
“Then from who?”
She looked toward the parking lot, where a dark sedan waited beneath the trees.
“I don’t know.”
Mark followed her gaze.
Daniel, her cousin, stood beside the car with his arms crossed. Watching.
Emily turned back.
“It included a photograph. You and Madison cutting the cake.”
Mark’s chest went cold.
“I got one too.”
Emily froze.
“You did?”
“Yes. It said, ‘Ask Emily what she knows.’”
Her face drained of color.
“What did yours say?” he asked.
For a moment, Emily did not answer.
Then she reached into her purse with a trembling hand and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
She did not give it to him.
She only opened it enough for him to see the words printed across the bottom of the photograph.
Not handwritten.
Typed.
Clean.
Deliberate.
Mark read the sentence once.
Then again.
The garden sounds faded around him.
Because Emily’s message did not say Ask Emily what she knows.
It said:
Ask Mark what happened to the fourth file.
END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “THE ENTIRE STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL STORY.
