“Humor me.”
He nodded toward the empty seat across from him.
“Your MiMi landed,” he said. “So did the daycare teacher. Jury felt it. Could see it plain enough. You gave ’em a family to look at instead o’ just a theory.”
Eleanor sat, her spine protesting the movement.
“But.”
Deck made a face.
“There’s always a but.”
She rested one elbow on the table and rubbed lightly between her brows.
“Go ahead.”
He tapped the edge of one exhibit binder with a blunt finger.
“They’ve still got a body in the ground,” he said. “Still got eight years o’ gossip, whispers, podcasts, and folks tellin’ themselves a story till it sounds like memory. You helped. You definitely helped. But helpin’ and winnin’ are not the same beast.”
“No,” Eleanor said quietly. “They’re not.”
For a moment, the room went still except for the hum of the air and the faint thud of music from some bar down the block.
Deck took off his glasses, folded them, and laid them on the table.
“I went back through everything,” he said.
She looked up.
“All of it?”
“Aye. Again.” His mouth twitched. “At my age, repetition is either discipline or madness. Jury’s still out.”
The smallest flicker of a smile tugged at her mouth.
“What did you find?”
He slid the thin folder across the conference table.
“There’s somethin’ in there you need to see.”
Eleanor looked at him.
The expression on his face made her stomach tighten.
She opened the folder.
The first page was a glossy printout from Vanished in the Valley.
Lila Grant’s face stared back at her.
The next page was older.
Different news site. Different haircut.
Same woman.
