Now I saw only the architect of a house built without windows.
“Which part?” I asked. “Finding the documents or surviving long enough to read them?”
Her eyes flickered, but only briefly.
Daniel stepped forward. “Mrs. Mitchell, this area is under court-supervised review.”
Evelyn ignored him. “You have no idea what you’re disturbing.”
“I think I’m beginning to,” I said.
She looked at the open box, at the letters in my hand.
Something passed through her face then. Not guilt exactly. Recognition.
“You were always too emotional,” she said quietly.
I almost smiled. “And yet you kept all my letters.”
Jason would have denied it. He would have raged or laughed or called me unstable.
Evelyn did something worse.
She told the truth carefully.
“I kept what needed to be kept.”
“For whom?”
“For the family.”
The word landed with old weight. Family. In Evelyn’s mouth, it had never meant love. It meant reputation. Legacy. The Mitchell name polished until no one could see what it cost to make it shine.
