“I’m sorry I kept it from you, June,” he says. “I was protecting my mother. I think a part of me always believed it could be true. And then if it wasn’t, what good would it have been to go around telling anybody?”

“It wasn’t the only thing you kept from me, Ezra.” He gives me a look of surprised confusion. “Vandalizing my cottage?”

He rolls his eyes. “My god, June, where did you manage to dig that up?”

“I didn’t have to do any digging. Judy told me.”

He throws up a hand. “Yeah, I did a stupid kid thing and committed some light vandalism. I was angry and didn’t know what to do about it. I also cleaned it up and have more or less taken care of the place ever since because I felt so badly about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was ashamed of it.”

I take a sip of my drink for courage and then get up off the couch and go into Ezra’s office. Opening the trunk, I find the cigar box. I bring it out to him in the living room. “And what about this?” I say, holding it up in front of him.

He looks confused at first and takes the box from me to look at it more closely. I can see recognition slowly dawning. “Ah, this,” he says, flipping the lid open. “It was my dad’s. Where did you get it?”

“I found it in the trunk in your office.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Why were you looking in the trunk in my office?”

“I was snooping around. I admit it. The night I stayed here alone. I had a beer with Judy and she told me how angry you’d been at my family and about the vandalizing and seeing your dad leave that night in a boat headed toward Avril Island.” I sink down on the couch beside him. “I just didn’t know who I could trust, and I was feeling suspicious.”

In typical Ezra fashion, he reaches out and rubs my arm. “I understand, June. I probably would have done the same. I just wish you’d talked to me about it up front.”

I point at the cigar box. “Are you sure that was your dad’s?”