I adopted the 16-year-old girl involved in my only daughter’s death — five years later, she whispered through tears, “Everything you know about that night is a lie.”

I was sixteen with a record.

He was your husband.” She looked at the floor.

“So I said I took the car.

Because he told me to.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Ava—”

“There’s more.” She reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

“Chloe wrote this.

Right before the crash.

I kept it hidden for five years.”

I reached for it.

Then we both heard it.

The sound of Daniel’s truck pulling back into the driveway.

—

What’s written on that paper — and why did Daniel come back early?

Ava shoved the note into my hands.

“Read it.

Right now.

Before he gets inside.”

My fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

The paper shook as I unfolded it.

Chloe’s handwriting — I would know it anywhere, the looping C, the way she pressed too hard on every vowel.