Chapter 59

Cassandra had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the early days of her fledgling agency, assembling her team and scrawling plans across whiteboards with the zeal of a woman determined to prove herself. Yet even amid new client meetings and the clatter of her laptop keys, she set aside one afternoon to visit someone she held closest in her heart—someone who could no longer meet her in this world. With Thomas steadily by her side, she drove to the quiet cemetery where Clara lay beneath a weathered headstone.

A thin veil of mist curled between the rows of upright stones. Autumn’s chill whispered through the bare branches overhead, skittering dry leaves along the gravel path. Cassandra paused before the small patch of freshly turned earth where her sister rested, inhaling a trembling breath. Her hand found Thomas’s, and together they stepped up to the marker: CLARA EVANS, beloved sister and daughter, 1982–2014.

Cassandra’s chest tightened. It did not matter how many years ha