The restaurant seemed to close in—the clatter of glassware, the soft jazz drifting from the speakers, candlelight reflecting in the dark windows. Mom’s birthday cake sat half-sliced between us, pink frosting roses sagging in the heat.

“That house wasn’t empty,” Mom whispered.

Daniel’s jaw tightened. “Don’t start.”

My pulse quickened. I knew that tone. It was the one he used before burying something in paperwork and calling it mercy.

“What was in it?” I asked.

Mom turned to me, fear raw in her eyes, almost knocking the breath out of me. “I told you never to go there.”

Before I could respond, the restaurant’s front doors burst open.

Two men and a woman in plain clothes crossed the room with deliberate urgency, silencing every table they passed. Their badges flashed gold.

“United States Marshals,” the woman said.

Her gaze fixed on Daniel first.

Then my mother.

Then, to my shock, me.

“Do not leave your seats,” she said. “We need to know which one of you removed the package from the house on Hawthorn Lane.”