There was no weapon inside.
No blood.
No nightmare made physical.
There was paperwork.
A thick stack of documents.
A cheap black phone I had never seen.
Then a blue passport slid onto the metal table and fell open.
The photograph was Cynthia.
My daughter.
But the name beside her face wasn’t hers.
I couldn’t breathe.
Underneath the passport was a folded sheet of drawing paper.
My hands moved before my mind caught up.
I opened it.
It showed a beach house drawn in pencil, with a dog standing nearby.
