Written in 21 minutes. No time for typos.

Elizabeth Morgan walked into her brother’s apartment and just stared at the living room, at the jacket thrown carelessly over the back of the sofa.

She walked forward and picked it up, smoothing her hand over the denim. “I always made fun of him,” she murmured. “Because he still wore jean jackets.”

“We’ll find him,” Justus said. “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding—”

Elizabeth looked at her cousin-in-law, her favorite of Jason’s family, and smiled thinly. “You know what next week is, don’t you?”

Justus hesitated, looked away. “Yeah, I do. I’m not likely to forget.”

“Do you think my brother would go missing right now? With my divorce about to be finalized, with the one year—” Elizabeth closed her eyes, swallowed hard. “It would be Lily’s birthday, if she’d lived. She should have—”

With a deep exhale, she set the jacket down. “You know, I didn’t think he’d come back for this. For Carly.”

“Elizabeth—”

“Maybe because he wouldn’t come back for me, I thought he’d—” She rubbed her hands together, then frowned at her left hand, at the set of rings she couldn’t take off.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say you to you, Elizabeth.” Justus spread his hands out at his sides.

“Yeah, that’s common in your family. For six months—” She rubbed her chest. “Never mind. We’re not here to litigate any of this again. Steven didn’t disappear on his own. He’s gone, and it’s around the same time Carly died. So I guess I want to know if there’s a connection.”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I was out of town, too,” Justus told her. “Tamika’s sister had us down to Philly for her grandfather’s birthday. That’s where I was when I got the call. The only thing Bernie told me was that Moreno’s men had broken into the Towers and they found Carly in the master bedroom.” He pressed his lips together. “Her neck was broken.”

Elizabeth pressed a fist to her abdomen. “Here? In the Towers? I didn’t realize—”

“That’s why I tracked Jason down. With Michael — I was worried. I thought—with Michael possibly in danger—”

“He’d come back for that,” Elizabeth finished. She wandered over to the fireplace and picked up a picture on the mantel. A photograph of Steven and Elizabeth on her wedding day. She traced her fingers over the smile.

She’d forgotten what it was like to smile.

“They never found out how the bomb got in my car, did they?” Elizabeth murmured. “In the parking garage. The Towers was supposed to be safe.” She looked at Justus. “Sonny would never tell me — you know the rules. And Jason couldn’t—” Her throat was thick as she tried to continue speaking. “We couldn’t talk about it.”

“No. Moreno claimed he didn’t know anything, and we—I believed him. So did Jason. Sonny always think it’s Moreno, but we’ve learned to ignore him.” Justus hesitated. “We thought a guard had turned, was going for Jason.”

“So it wouldn’t be the same thing now. Jason’s gone. Carly must have been personal.” Elizabeth set the photo back on the mantel. “When did you realize Steven was gone?”

“The day after Carly. The day I came back, I called him and he didn’t return the calls. We needed him to sedate Sonny, but he—he wasn’t there.”

“Steven and I talk once a day most of the time,” Elizabeth said after a long moment. “Since I moved to Boston, he was worried about me being alone. Sometimes we skipped a day, but he always texted. When he didn’t call last week—I let it go. Her murder—I knew about it. I thought—I thought he was busy.”

She went down the hallway to his bedroom and pushed open the slightly ajar door. The bed was neatly made, the closet door closed. “But by Wednesday, I knew something was wrong. I kept trying—I kept pretending—but I knew. Seven days.”

She opened the closet and found what she was looking for — a box at the bottom of the closet — a peach memory box, decorated with green and white swirls. She picked it up and set it on Steven’s dresser.

“We had plans for next week,” Elizabeth murmured. “For Lily’s birthday. I was going to open this and finally look at her—”

Justus touched her shoulder. “You didn’t—”

“They told me she was stillborn, and I don’t—” Elizabeth traced the embossed edges. “I couldn’t. Jason did. Maybe that was the problem. I don’t know. I wished I was dead, too. I should have been.”

“Elizabeth—”

She opened the box and just stared at the photograph laying on top. The baby looked like she was sleeping — a sweet little face with a lock of light brown hair dusting her forehead.

Elizabeth picked it up, took a deep breath. “She looks like Jason,” she murmured. She looked at Justus whose eyes were red. “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Yeah. She does. Elizabeth, he’s always blamed himself. He thinks he killed her.”

“He didn’t,” Elizabeth said. She set the photo back in the box and closed the top. “Sonny did. You know that, don’t you?”

“Elizabeth—”

“He never liked me, never liked Jason having his own family. That’s why you never found out who it was. That’s why he didn’t come to the funeral. That’s why Jason can’t look at me. Because he knows it, too.”

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