That last photo made even more cold worry pool in my chest, as though my heart were made of the same jagged icicles as Deirdre’s rune.
“It’s like a chronicle of their relationship,” Bria murmured, studying the photos as I handed them to her one by one. “Only without saying how or when they finally broke up.”
“I’m guessing that part didn’t make for such a pretty picture.”
Bria set the photos aside, and I fished out the other objects in the box. An engagement ring with a hole where the diamond should be. An empty, cracked, heart-shaped perfume bottle that still smelled faintly of peonies. A blue cameo of a mother holding a child, split down the middle into two pieces.
“Mementos Fletcher saved from happier times?” Bria suggested.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they’re a message.”
She held up the cameo pieces. “What kind of message does a broken pendant send?”
“Not a good one.”
A soft blue baby blanket was also tucked into the box, with Finn’s name stitched across the bottom in white letters. I lifted up the blanket, expecting it to be the final thing in the box, but two items were buried underneath it, two letters in sealed envelopes, one addressed to me and the other to Finn.
I gasped, but Bria was looking through the photos again, so she didn’t notice my surprise. I dropped the blanket back down where it had been, hiding the letters. I loved my sister, but I wanted to read Fletcher’s words in private, wanted to have some time to myself to think about them and digest them. Not to mention Finn’s letter. I didn’t even know what to do with that right now.
“That’s it?” Bria asked. “Just a baby blanket? That’s all there is?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Why?”
She shrugged. “All this stuff is interesting, for sure, but there’s nothing here that’s earth-shattering. Overall, it seems a bit . . . disappointing.”
“You’re not the one with a suddenly not-so-dead mother.”
“True,” Bria said. “But Fletcher has left you clues and letters before. Far more detailed ones. This seems like a keepsake box more than anything else. I just thought there would be something more. Records, certificates, maybe even a diary that would tell you about Deirdre, like why she apparently faked her own death and left town and why Fletcher went along with it.”
I shrugged, making sure not to look at the baby blanket and the two letters buried under it. “The old man always left me the information that he thought was the most important. In this case, maybe he thought it was the pictures. Maybe he wanted me to see Deirdre as she was back then.”
“Well, you knew Fletcher best. Maybe things will make more sense after you’ve gone through everything again.”
Bria bit her lip, dropped her gaze to her hands, and started twisting her two rune rings around on her fingers, something she only did when she was thinking hard or worried about something. Her own giveaway, just like quietness was mine.
After a few seconds, her hands stilled, and she looked at me. “So what do we tell Finn?”
I scrubbed my hands over my face, but the motion did nothing to ease the dull ache in my temples. “I don’t know. I was hoping that I’d be able to track her down and do some reconnaissance before I told him anything. But so far, she’s been a complete ghost. No driver’s license, no property or tax records, no trace of a Deirdre Shaw anywhere in Ashland.” I gestured at the box, photos, and other items. “Even with all of this, all I really know about her is that she’s not dead like she’s supposed to be.”
“You have to tell Finn that his mother is alive,” Bria said in a soft voice. “He’s already going to be upset and hurt that you didn’t tell him the second you found out. The longer you wait now, the worse it will be. You know that.”
I did know that, but that didn’t mean I liked it. How do you break something like this to someone? How do you go about rocking the foundation of his world to its very core? Changing everything he thought he knew about his parents? All that would have been bad enough if this was a stranger. But this was Finn. The guy I’d been raised with. The guy I had been through so much with. The man who was my brother in all the ways that truly mattered.
I didn’t know, and now I was in the damned awkward position of having to find out.
“Well,” I said, trying to make a joke of things, the way Finn would have if our positions had been reversed. “I say we ply him with food and booze and then spring the news on him. Have all his favorite things around to help soften the shock.”
Bria nodded. “That’s actually not a bad idea. We’re supposed to go to a cocktail party at his bank tomorrow night. Finn is schmoozing with some new client he wants me to meet. You and Owen could tag along, and we could all go to Underwood’s for dinner afterward. Tell him everything and then figure out what our next move is.”
I winced.