“We’re going back,” Emily said suddenly.

I looked at her, surprised. “To his house?”

“No,” she said, her posture straightening, the exhaustion vanishing from her face, replaced by a cold, calm certainty. “Not to his house. To the family.”

She walked into the kitchen, picked up her dark jacket from the chair, and looked at the two loose threads hanging from her lapel. Then she looked at the spare pin sitting in the shadow box.

“He held that ceremony in front of everyone because he wanted them to believe his version of the story,” Emily said, her voice quiet but unyielding. “He made them watch him take something away from me. I think it’s time they see what the record actually says.”

I looked at the shadow box resting on the hall table, its glass catching the morning light, holding the truth in unshakeable brass.

“Put your coat on,” I said. “I’ll get the keys.”