lowered the hatch.

He did not move anything else.

He called the nearest state police barracks, explained that there was an unknown package hidden in our vehicle, and followed the instructions we were given.

The officer on the phone told us to come in directly and not to continue toward the border.

I got back into the driver’s seat on shaking hands.

The kids asked if we were still going to the reunion.

I told them plans had changed.

Our oldest, who was old enough to hear the wrongness in adult silence, watched me for a long time and then nodded once without asking again.

The barracks was forty minutes away.

It felt like four hours.

At the station, a trooper met us in the parking lot and guided us to a secure bay.

Another officer brought the kids juice boxes and coloring pages while my husband and I gave our names.

I remember that detail because I cried the moment I saw the coloring pages.

It was such a small, kind thing, and I had been holding myself together by force.

We repeated the story twice, then a third time for an investigator.

They photographed the trunk, removed the bag, and inventoried the contents in front of us.

There was a little over seventy-four thousand dollars in cash.

There were three velvet pouches containing antique jewelry, including my grandmother’s diamond brooch and a sapphire bracelet I had last seen in her safety deposit box after her funeral.

There was a typed sheet of account numbers linked to my father’s contracting business.

There were copies of deposit slips.

There was the handwritten note from my mother.

And tucked into an inner pocket, there was another folded page that changed the tone of everything.

It was an email printout from my father to my uncle Graham.

Need this held there until Monday.

Claire doesn’t know details.

Better that way.

I felt heat rise behind my eyes so fast I thought I might be sick on the polished floor.

My uncle Graham lived in Quebec and had offered to host that year’s reunion because his wife’s family had access to a lakeside property.

I had assumed he was just the convenient relative with a nice place and a grill big enough for too many hamburgers.

Now I realized my parents had not chosen the location because it was scenic.

They had chosen it because there was a border between us and him.

While the officers continued logging evidence, my phone began to ring.

Mom.

I let it go to voicemail.

It rang again.

Mom.

Then Dad.

Then Mom a third time.

I listened to the first voicemail on speaker with the investigator in the room.

My mother’s voice was tight, too high, already angry.

“Where are you? Graham’s been waiting.

You need to answer me right now.

And whatever Daniel found, he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at, so don’t do anything dramatic.

Call me back before you make this worse.”

The investigator held out his hand for my phone and asked if there were more messages.

There were.

The second was from my father.

“If you turned around because of that note, use your head.

We were trying to keep you out of it.

Just come here and we’ll explain.”

That