I don’t speak.
“Once you read what’s in that envelope,” he continues, “there’s no going back. Not for you. Not for her. So consider very carefully what we do here, Justin. Because you’re about to walkyourself straight into a moral dilemma you won’t be able to pretend your way out of.”
Something tightens behind my ribs.
Silas doesn’t dramatize things.Ever. If he’s warning me, it’s because this crosses a line even he doesn’t want to step over.
“Tell me,” I say.
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled.
“The reason you couldn’t find anything on Rowan Hale,” he tells me, “is because she didn’t want to be found.”
I don’t blink. This, I already knew.
“She learned early how to leave no footprints. No digital residue. No paper trail beyond what was strictly necessary to exist.”
“That doesn’t explain Missy,” I say. “And why we couldn’t find anything on her.”
“No,” Silas agrees. “It doesn’t.”
He reaches into the envelope and pulls out a single photograph—the one I lifted from Rowan’s apartment. He sets it face-up between us.
“The girl in the photo is her sister. Mississippi Hale. Older. Deceased.”
The word gut punches me. It lands the wrong way - heavy, final, ugly.
“There were court-mandated suppression orders put in place after her death,” Silas continues. “A total media blackout. The records were sealed. Her case was never meant to see daylight.”
My fingers curl slightly against one another.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I’m saying someone high enough to make the problem disappear did exactly that,” he replies. “That’s why you can’t find Rowan or Missy anywhere. Their names were scrubbed. Redacted. Buried. So no one would ever look too closely at what actually happened.”
A slow, cold awareness spreads through me, creeping in piece by piece. It burns and freezes at the same time, a clash of fire and ice sliding through my veins. My body reacts before my mind fully catches up—muscles tightening, breath sharpening, instincts snapping into place.
“What happened?” I ask.
Silas doesn’t rush as he speaks.
“The girls were attacked ten years ago as they were walking home after a birthday party. Rowan managed to get away. Missy didn’t.”
The room feels smaller. I almost feel it shrink to a size where it no longer fits me.
“Rowan identified two of the three men who attacked them. She never stopped talking. Never stopped pushing. But no one listened.”
My jaw tightens.
“There was a third man that was never identified. And because of the suppression order, the names of the others were sealed.”
I already know the answer to my own question even before I ask.
“Let me guess. Rich boys from prominent families.”
Silas nods once. “Your guess would be right.”
I lean back slightly in my chair, the weight of it pressing down now. Pieces start slotting into place. Rowan’s discipline. Her restraint. The way she moves through the world like visibility is a threat.
