He hadn’t given it to me out of some sudden burst of love, or to make peace with Claire before he died.

He’d given it to me because he knew Gene kept the original 1990 birth affidavit locked in the secondary box inside the hardware store safe.

Frank wanted his conscience cleared before he went, but he wanted me to do the hard digging once he was safely in the ground.

He wasn’t trying to save me.

He was protecting his own memory from the truth and leaving me to clean up after his crime.

I set the brass key on the dashboard and reached for the thick paper file Howard Cobb had given me before I left his office.