I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed, pulling on the least offensive combination of clothes I owned and hoping that counted as effort. It felt like armor in the loosest sense—thin, questionable, but better than nothing.
By the time I stepped into the Historical Society, the same paper-stuffed chaos greeted me, unchanged and unapologetic.
Albert peered at me from behind a leaning tower of newspapers. “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “You showed up.”
“I said I would,” I replied.
He grunted, apparently satisfied with that, then reached into a pile and yanked out a thick, worn file, the edges soft with age. “Then you can start with this,” he said, shoving it into my hands.
I looked down at it. The tab was faded, the ink smudged, but I could just make out the date. Twenty years ago.
“What
