The courthouse records room… God, it reeked. That damp, paper-gone-old smell, mixed with dust and something like mouldy concrete. The flickering bulbs kept cutting shadows over the stacks of yellowed files, like they were trying to play tricks. Each buzz drilled right into Camille’s skull.

She just… stood there. Rigid. Heart thumping fast and uneven, like it wanted out. The locket’s photo wouldn’t leave her head—her, tiny, with that blurred-out woman. Her chest squeezed. Ellie was safe at the neighbor’s, yeah, but safe suddenly felt like a flimsy thing.

Who even knew me back then? I—no, I can’t let them near her.

Her palms were stuck to the side of...