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His eyes shift, but he says nothing.

I set the stack on the table between us, the brittle rubber band snapping as I peel it off.

He nods and starts to flip through them, quiet.

The first photo shows a group of men standing outside the church, some with hands stuffed into pockets, and others coffee cups in hand. My father is in the center, his arm slung around a man I don’t recognize, tall, wiry, sharp-featured, with a gaze like a loaded question.

“That’s Levi Harris,” Clyde murmurs, tapping the man’s face. “Didn’t talk much. Always watching. Like he was keeping score.”

I nod. He’s not telling me anything I don’t already know.

Clyde flips to the next photo. A potluck scene. Tables sagging under casseroles and pies. My mother, laughing, her arm linked with another woman I half remember. In the background, a small cluster of men standing too still to belong.

“You remember this?” I ask.

“Yeah. Fourth of July potluck. Your mom made that apple pie everyone fought over.” He taps a face near the edge of the photo. “That’s Kerr. Always stayed on the fringe. Didn’t talk unless he had to.”

I lean closer. Kerr’s posture is familiar. My stomach tightens. He’s looking off-frame, at something. Or someone.

Clyde turns to another photo. A community cleanup day. Teenagers with trash bags. Adults milling in the background. Cindy is there, smiling, but not really. Her eyes are vacant. Absent.

“That’s Cindy,” Clyde says. His jaw ticks. “She loved that kind of thing. Volunteered for everything. Said she wanted to help people.” He exhales slowly. “I thought she was mad at me that summer. She stopped talking to me. Wouldn’t even look at me.”

“She wasn’t mad at you,” I say quietly. “It wasn’t anything you did.”

His eyes snap to mine. He doesn’t ask what I saw. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. Or maybe… he already does.

We flip through more. Faces. Names. Most blur together. Until one stops me, my father, Levi, and a man I’ve never seen, but somehow know. The way he stands. The weight in his shoulders. The shape of something wrong.

“That’s Henry O’Rourke,” Clyde says. “Ran the hardware store before Tucker bought him out. Soon after that, he left town.”

The name drops into me like a stone into still water, and the ripples spread out further than I want them to. I can still smell the sawdust in that store, sharp and sweet, mixed with machine oil, a smell that never left no matter the season. I remember the counter better than I remember him, how tall it seemed, how I had to stand on my toes just to see over the top of it. I don’t remember his face. What I remember is the low voices, men coming in and out, the way a conversation would stop the second I got close enough to hear it.

Clyde tosses the photos onto the table. The sound pulls me from the memory.

He leans back away from the table and takes a drink, his whole demeanor changing. The shift fills the room. “Jonah Bushell stopped by my parents’ place a few days ago,” he says. I go still. What is Jonah up to? “I figured he came to see you, too,” Clyde adds. His tone is too casual.

“No. He didn’t. There’s no reason for him to.”

Clyde tilts his head. “Funny. He said he was at your cabin the evening the PI showed up.”

I don’t flinch. Don’t breathe.

“I mean, Jonah’s old,” he continues, “but I doubt he’d forget where he was. Or who he was watching.”

The silence stretches.

“Is that why you’re here, Lydia?” he finally asks, pulling himself forward, setting the mug on the table and resting his arms on his knees. “Because of the PI?”

I don’t answer.

“He’s looking for missing men. Men that have nothing to do with you, right? What’s got you all worked up, Lyd? Why the sudden interest in the past? Hell, if I remember it right, you didn’t enjoy it while you were living it, so why so interested now? What’s got you chasing ghosts?”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“Understand what?” His tone sharpens. “Why they left? Or why they didn’t leave sooner? Last time we talked, you didn’t care about Wolfe. You never cared about anyone in this town. So, what’s changed? Getting bored playing nursemaid to your father? Looking for a new hobby until he finally dies?”

I don’t react. But cold settles under my skin. This isn’t the Clyde I remember.