Then she added, “But we found security footage from the gas station. A man matching Neil’s description removed it while you were inside.”

Daniel closed his eyes.

My mother began to sob.

“Where did he take it?” I asked.

The marshal met my gaze. “To a storage unit rented under an alias. Our team just opened it.”

She paused.

“And they recovered the box.”

Relief hit me so suddenly I had to grip the table.

But there was one last blow.

“Inside,” she said more gently, “was a second envelope. Addressed to you.”

“To me?”

She nodded. “From your grandfather.”

Everything else faded—the restaurant, the staring relatives, Daniel in cuffs, my mother crying. Later, I would learn my grandfather had known the witness was in danger and agreed to hide the evidence until the right person in the family could bring it forward—not the most obedient, not the most respectable.

The one least willing to play along.

He had chosen me.