Page 128 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Roman moves to my side. “Could that be the missing overlay?”

“Maybe.”

The backing is the right size. Green residue stains one corner, where a pressed stem has crumbled. The center section, however, has been removed. Four tiny cuts show where a smaller piece of vellum was once stitched over the map. The missing attachment has its own missing attachment.

A breath escapes me that almost becomes a laugh. “She could have hidden a confession inside a puzzle inside a locked drawer and called it convenient.”

Wes studies the map without touching it. “Where does the brown route end?”

“It doesn’t show the end.” I follow the line in the air. “It passes south of Old County Nine, near the abandoned drainage road and the older cypress access.”

“The repair yard is off Old County Nine,” Roman says.

“Close enough to be irritating. Too far apart to call it a match.”

Roman photographs the map while I search beneath the vellum.

An envelope lies at the bottom of the box.

My name crosses the front in my grandmother’s handwriting.

Scarlet.

My hands go cold.

Wes notices before I break the seal, and his palm settles against my lower back. “You don’t have to read it tonight.”

“Yes, I do.”

The paper inside smells faintly of cedar from the box.

Scarlet,

If these notes reach you before I’ve explained them, then I’ve failed at another difficult conversation.

I stop. Roman’s fingers close around mine.

I once watched people mistake keeping a bond intact for keeping the people inside it safe. They held tighter after consent had fractured. They called the pain protection because admitting otherwise would have required release.

The next sentence has been struck through so heavily, the paper is nearly torn. Below it, she wrote Love that asks you to disappear in order to preserve it is not protection.

My vision blurs. Through the open window, the stars sharpen above the greenhouse roof.

I read the final lines. If this pattern returns, look first for what was forced to remain. Then ask who benefits from calling it sacred.

There is no signature and no further explanation, only the fear I’ve carried for years written in the hand of a woman who never told me she understood it.

I fold the letter along its old crease. “I thought she believed I was dramatic.”

Roman’s thumb moves along my knuckles. “Maybe she was afraid you were right.”

“That isn’t better.”

“No.” His voice stays gentle. “It isn’t.”

Wes turns my stool toward him and crouches between my knees. His hands settle on my legs, warm and steady, while he waits for me to look at him.

My grandmother’s words are still open on the table behind him. They held tighter after consent had fractured.