I explained the dispute without showing him every document.
He listened until I mentioned Elise’s missing photograph album.
Then he stood so abruptly that the dog raised its head.
“They took her pictures?”
“I think someone did.”
“Owen, that’s not just a property disagreement.”
“I know.”
Colin had helped Elise build the shed when we first moved in.
He remembered an old steel box she kept there for home records and warranties.
“She told me it was fireproof,” he said.
“I haven’t seen it in years.”
I tried to picture it.
The cabinet had been moved away from the wall.
The steel box might have been the real target.
“What was in it?” I asked.
“I never looked.”
“Did she mention Sterling?”
He frowned.
“She mentioned a man from the plant once.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did she say?”
“That he wanted access through the garden and she told him to bring proof he had permission.”
I told Colin about Peter’s recollection of meeting her near the survey plaque.
He nodded.
“Your wife didn’t like people cutting corners.”
We spent the afternoon repairing a broken fence on his farm.
It was ordinary work, and my hands were grateful for something tangible to do.
After dinner he offered to come stay at the house until the situation settled.
I told him Hannah was there.
“That’s not what I asked,” he said.
I smiled.
“You can come Sunday.”
Before leaving, I stood beside his vegetable patch and looked at the hills stretching toward the west.
I had been so focused on proving Meredith wrong that I had almost forgotten what safety felt like.
It was not a locked gate or a camera, though both could help.
It was the knowledge that people would come when I called, even if the call was only to ask them to sit on a porch and listen.
I drove home with a crate of tomatoes and a promise to stop pretending I had to carry every problem by myself.
Colin arrived Sunday with a toolbox and a stack of old photographs from our family albums.
Hannah greeted him at the door and asked whether he was planning to repair the entire house.
“Only the parts your father refuses to admit are broken,” he replied.
We searched the shed together, documenting what we moved and leaving the suspected entry area undisturbed until Tran confirmed that the evidence had been collected.
A small empty recess had been cut into the back of the cabinet years earlier.
