WHEN ASHES REFUSE TO STAY BURIED

Nora lunged across the kitchen and snatched the receiver off the cradle. "Hello?"

"Nora. It's Miller."

The sheriff’s voice was strained, breathless, carrying the sound of howling highway wind in the background. Sheriff Marcus Miller was usually a man of calm, measured authority—a sixty-year-old mountain lawman who spoke in slow drawls and handled cattle disputes and speeding tickets with casual ease. Right now, he sounded like a man standing on the edge of a collapsed bridge.

"Sheriff," Nora whispered, keeping her eyes fixed on Abby, who was sitting quietly on the living room rug drawing with crayons. "Claire Vance was just here."

"I know," Miller replied grimly. "State police picked up her tail twenty miles outside of Blackwood about an hour ago, but she cut through an unpaved logging easement and shook them. Listen to me very carefully: she didn't come alone."

The hair on Nora’s arms stood on end. "What are you talking about? She was driving an old red wagon by herself."

"That car was registered to a rental agency in Akron," Miller said, his siren blaring briefly in the distance before he shut it down. "Claire doesn't have the cash or the nerve to pull this off by herself. Her brother, Marcus Kane—Caleb's old lieutenant—walked out of an interstate work release program three days ago. He’s the one who gave her the car."

Nora felt the room spin. Marcus Kane. The name echoed like a death sentence from her darkest memories in Ohio. While Caleb had been loud, volatile, and reckless, Kane was calculated, cold, and notoriously violent. He had run the Iron Horsemen's weapons pipeline until the state caught him on tax fraud.

"She has the key to Box 402," Nora said, her voice dropping so Abby couldn't hear. "She says my father left evidence connecting you and Jax to Caleb’s death."

There was a long, suffocating silence on the other end of the line.

"Nora," Miller said quietly, his voice hollow. "Thomas didn't leave evidence of a murder. Thomas kept that box to protect you. What's in Box 402 isn't about me. It's the original paternity and adoption records from thirty-two years ago."

Nora froze, the plastic receiver slippery in her sweating palm. "What are you talking about?"

"Thomas wasn't your biological father," Miller said, each word landing like a sledgehammer against her skull. "Neither was Evelyn your mother. You were taken from an unregistered clinic run by the syndicate in 1994. Thomas took you to save your life, and Kane has been looking for that bloodline for twenty years. Claire doesn't want the money, Nora. Claire is the distraction. Kane is after the girl."