The photograph didn’t leave my desk.
Not that morning.
Not even when I forced myself to go downstairs and act like everything was normal.
I kept seeing his face.
Daniel Vance.
Circled.
He knew.
And the more I thought about it, the more one question refused to go away.
Why him?
Out of everyone in that room…
Why did my father choose him?
By the time I got back to my room, I already knew I wasn’t going to ignore it.
I closed the door.
Locked it.
Then sat down at the desk again.
The photograph waited where I had left it.
Like it had been expecting me.
“Alright,” I muttered.
“Let’s figure this out.”
I picked it up again.
This time, I didn’t just look at him.
I looked at everything.
The background.
The people around him.
The positioning.
Mrs. Walter stood near the center
