“Okay.” She sighed. “I wanted to be strong. I thought if I could go there, it would be like taking my life back.”

I shook my head. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“Stupid, I know. But you have to understand. I thought I’d put all that to bed, but now it’s all come back to me in vivid color.”

Because of me.

“When you’ve been through something so terrible,” she went on, “something you think you might never get over, sometimes you’re willing to do just about anything to merely survive.”

“I do understand. And I promise you. You will take your life back, Zee, but St. Andrew’s isn’t the place to do it. Telling your story is. Owning it. Going public so we can take Father Jim and any other tyrants still out there down. So we can show the world who my father truly was.”

“And talking to the detective is the first step.”

“Yeah. It is.” I cupped her cheek and looked up as the black car weaved through traffic to stop in front of the Starbucks. “Here’s Wayne now. Let’s go.”

She stood, and I took her left hand. It was still clenched into a fist.

“Hey,” I said. “Relax.”

She released her hand. A small piece of white card stock was crumpled in her palm.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must. You’re holding it.”

She closed her eyes a moment, as if trying to recall something important. Then she opened them. “I think I found it in the rose garden. Behind St. Andrew’s.”

I took the crumpled card from her and straightened it. Then I widened my eyes. “You found this on church property?”

“I guess so. If the rose garden is church property.”

It was a business card—a business card that had clearly been in the rose garden for a while. It was weathered, had probably been rained on. But the printing was still intact.

Lacey Ward.

It was Lacey’s business card for her former law firm.

Either Lacey had been in that rose garden…

Or someone wanted us to think she had been.

35

Zee

Reid didn’t look happy.

Finally, my mind seemed to be returning to normal. I remembered now. I’d knelt down to pick up the piece of paper and then I became lightheaded. I’d stumbled and fallen.

“What is it?” I asked.

He didn’t meet my gaze. “Just an old business card.”

“Whose business card?”

“No one’s. Come on.” He led me to the car and then slid in beside me.

Reid stared at the card for another few seconds before placing it in his wallet.

He’d said it was “no one’s.” If that were the case, though, why didn’t he just toss it in the trash can at the Starbucks?

I let out a sigh.