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My gaze panned back to the scrapbook, where the answers lived. Where they dwelled in dormancy, lurking, lingering, waiting to be harnessed and molded into action.

I did hold power.

Power to destroy and power to heal.

I thought about the puzzle Dad and I had done, years back. The one with the gummed-up, crooked piece. That puzzle would never be perfect. It would never be exactly what I’d envisioned it to be. But it was still a finished puzzle, with every piece stitched together, just the way it was supposed to be.

I would put the final piece into place.

Imperfect.

Flawed but complete.

And then, finally…

A new puzzle could begin.

CHAPTER 39

There was a knock at my door.

Pulling up from the training mat in my bedroom, I jumped to my feet and searched for a clean T-shirt as I swiped a sheen of sweat off my face with a towel. “Coming.” I flipped off the radio, assuming it was my elderly neighbor asking me to turn the music down.

Draping the towel over my shoulder, I sauntered to the front door and tugged it open.

Nothing.

Nobody was there.

I blinked, glancing around the vacant hallway. Then, shaking my head with a sigh, I moved back to close the door.

But something stole my attention the moment I dropped my eyes.

My heart rate tripled.

It was a photograph of me. A picture taped to cream-colored cardstock, decorated with blue marker and flowing words. Beside it was a little note.

I bent over, my pulse in overdrive, and plucked the pages off the floor.

Curious, disbelieving eyes roved over the picture as I registered what it was.

Halley’s handwriting stared back at me: He sees me.

It was the picture she’d taken on a spring day, long ago, in the early stages of our budding relationship that would tip us sideways and rock my world. I was sitting on a park bench as she flaunted a disposable camera in front of my face. Her foray into photography. She’d managed to capture an authentic reaction, despite my efforts to remain stone-walled and expressionless. A tilt to my lips. A twinkle in my eye.

The beginning of the end.

My eyes watered as I studied her doodles and words.

He sees me.

I did see her. From the moment my eyes had landed on the sad girl in the lake, staring out at a bleak, dark canvas of water, I had done more than notice her. I’d seen her pain. Her misdirection. Her hopelessness. I’d felt it. She’d seeped inside of me and never left.

I exhaled a long breath as my attention turned to the accompanying note.

Whitney?

A frown creased my brows and my heart jumped again.