Taking those concrete steps had given me something solid to hold onto during the chaos.

Now, suddenly, my late aunt’s name had emerged from eight years in the past.

At two thirty-five that morning, I dialed the phone number for Samantha Cross.

I fully expected to be routed to an automated voicemail system.

Instead, a woman picked up the line on the fourth ring.

“Cross speaking,” she stated directly.

For a second, I wondered what kind of high-profile attorney answered her own phone in the middle of the night.

“Is this Claire?” she asked before I could introduce myself.