The letter ended with his signature across the bottom line, neat and firm, dated three weeks before he went into the hospital.

*This house was always your true home, Avery.

Don’t let them make you feel like a guest in it.*

I folded the paper along its original creases and slipped it back inside the blue leather ledger.

Across the street, a dark blue sedan turned out of the bank parking lot and pulled up to the curb near the park entrance.

Christopher Pembroke opened the driver’s door and stepped onto the sidewalk with a thick white courier envelope in his left hand.