A long silence on the line.

“I’m scared he already knows what I did, Mom,” Linus whispered, and his voice was trembling, and every instinct I had screamed to tell him to run, to drop everything, to come home.

“Then throw it all away,” I begged.

“The files, the notebook, all of it.

Right now.

I don’t care about the money, Linus, I don’t care about any of it, I only need you safe.