A second item slid from the envelope.

Stamped with a number.

I stared at it.

Ethan did too.

“What does it open?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

But Rosie did.

She had returned quietly.

Her face had gone pale.

“That’s a bus-station locker key.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“My husband worked there before he retired.”

Ethan turned toward her.

“Which station?”

“The old central terminal.”

The terminal had closed four years ago.

Most of the building was abandoned.

“What is locker 214?” I asked.

Rosie shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

Ethan took out his phone.

This time I did not stop him.

He called one person.

“Marcus. I need the deed records for the old central terminal, the current property manager, and any active access logs. Quietly.”

He listened.

“No police yet.”

I looked at him.

“Why not?”

“Because whoever left this wants us to go there.”

“So we don’t.”

“Correct.”

A message came to my phone.

Unknown number.

OPEN IT BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

Beneath the words was a video file.

I pressed play.

The screen showed a hospital room.

Dr. Warren stood beside a bed.

Across from him sat Ethan’s mother, Margaret Brooks.

The timestamp was six years old.

Margaret placed an envelope on the table.

“You will tell Emily the child cannot be Ethan’s.”

Warren looked toward the door.

“And Ethan?”

“You will tell him she chose Michael.”

“What if they speak to each other?”

“They won’t.”

My hand began to shake.

The video continued.

Warren opened the envelope.

More than I could count.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

Margaret’s face remained calm.

“Because Ethan can never know what he carries.”

The video ended.

Ethan stared at the dark screen.

“What I carry?”

I looked at him.

The old medical diagnosis.

The false infertility.

The effort to prevent him from having a child.

This had never been about me.

Not completely.