Pride sparkled in the eyes of both figures in the photo.

“I miss her,” Gianna said softly. “I miss all of them. I can barely remember anything.” Violet put an arm around her mother and rested her head on her shoulder.

Chris watched their reflection in his computer screen. He was simultaneously happy and sad for them. He zoomed in on the necklace, but couldn’t make out any details. The size looked right, but the photo was too old and fuzzy to show the gentle swirls. “Let’s ask them to overnight the actual picture.”

A quick look through the other photos didn’t show any more views of the medallion. “Are you ready to look at Frisco’s photos again?” He hated to switch gears. Something about looking through Gianna’s history had brought a sweet and tender atmosphere to the room. He didn’t want it to end.

Gianna nodded.

“I’m done. I don’t want to see them,” Violet said. “Mind if I watch TV in the other room?”

“Go ahead,” Gianna told her.

“At least now you can look at those old pictures whenever you want,” Chris said, as he switched to a different folder on his screen.

As her daughter left the room, Gianna wiped at her tears with a shaking hand. She’d managed to hold it together while looking at the photos, but as soon as Violet was out of hearing, the dam had broken. Guilt swamped him.

“Sit down.” Chris stood and guided her into the desk chair. “I don’t know why I sat in the chair.”

She leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “You know part of the reason I moved was to get Violet away from some of the influences in New York, but most of all I simply wanted our connection back. It’s been just the two of us for a long time, and she’s the other half of my heart. I’ve desperately missed her. Since the fire, I’ve felt her slowly crawling back to me. I hate that it took something so drastic to bring her back, but I’ll take it.”

“She’s a great kid.”

“The exhaustion crept up on me. I think I’ve been running on adrenaline and suddenly I hit a wall. But it was so wonderful to see those pictures. I’ve forgotten so much.”

“I bet the police lab can do something with the actual photo to get a better look at the medallion,” Chris said.

“It won’t be a priority. Proving the pendant is the same as one as I had as a child doesn’t get them any closer to finding out who murdered Frisco and the other two men.”

“Assuming it is the same one, why was he wearing it?”

“I’ve asked the same question over and over.” She pressed her hands against her eyes. “I’m done for today. Can we look at them tomorrow? I just want to crawl in bed.”

Chris closed the lid to the laptop. “Absolutely. Reach out to me in the morning.”

She moved her hands. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and her exhaustion filled the room. A loud television laugh track sounded from the bedroom, and Gianna gave him a weak smile.

If Violet weren’t here . . .

Tension hummed between them. The good kind. The kind where his body ached to touch her. He lifted a hand to touch her hair, knowing that Violet’s presence would keep him in line. Her hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail, but small wisps hung around her face. They were soft to the touch, and she closed her eyes as his fingertips touched the skin of her cheek. He ran a finger over the wet track from the corner of her eye and pulled back.

“I should go.”

Her eyes opened and she said nothing. Her gaze told him she was fully aware of what could have happened if they’d been alone.

“Tomorrow,” she said softly.

He nodded, bent to kiss her lightly on the lips, and left the hotel room.

Her single word raced through his brain.

In the dark of the hotel room, Violet studied the tiny screen of her phone. Ever since Jamie had shared bits and pieces about Chris’s past, Violet had wanted to find out more. In the other bed in the room, her mother breathed steadily in sleep. After Chris had left, her mom had kissed her good night and fallen asleep almost instantly. Violet had read every article she could find about Chris Jacobs, and now she couldn’t sleep.

At the age of twelve, he’d been kidnapped along with a small group of other schoolchildren. They’d been held underground in a large tank of some sort by a sexual predator called the Ghostman.

Violet’s skin crawled.

Her best friend had been attacked by a man with his mind set on rape. If a passerby hadn’t intervened, Grace would have been violated and possibly killed. Her friend still had nightmares and refused to go anywhere alone. Violet suspected Grace’s attack had been part of Gianna’s abrupt decision to move. Part of her understood her mom’s fear, but couldn’t that happen anywhere?

Two years after Chris and the other children had vanished, Chris walked out of the forest half-dead, claiming no memory of what had happened to him.

Stunned, Violet set down her phone, remembering how Jamie had said that after he returned, Chris had spent most of his life pretending to be someone he was not . . . to protect the Brody family.

He was a boy at the time.

How did a child make and endure that choice? He’d purposefully stayed away from a family who loved him to keep a killer from seeking revenge. What had happened in that bunker that’d driven him to turn his back on his loved ones?

He was scared. Terrified.

Could she have sustained a lie like that? Chosen to no longer see her mother?