## CHAPTER 6 — THE MESSAGE BENEATH THE PLAQUE
The bronze plaque had been installed only three days earlier.
Khloe had been told it honored the emergency responders who saved her life after she was pushed down the courthouse steps while pregnant.
She had believed it represented closure.
Then she noticed one of the screws was loose.
Harrison was carrying Nora toward the waiting car when Khloe stopped halfway down the staircase.
“Harrison.”
Something in her voice made him turn immediately.
Khloe touched the corner of the plaque. The metal shifted slightly beneath her fingers.
“That wasn’t loose when we arrived.”
Harrison handed Nora back to her and examined it.
The lower-right screw had been removed and pushed carelessly back into place. Harrison pulled a small multitool from his pocket.
“You carry that everywhere?” Khloe asked.
“I’m an attorney. Everyone assumes we carry expensive pens. It gives me an advantage.”
He removed the remaining screws.
The plaque tilted forward.
Behind it was a narrow opening cut into the marble wall.
Inside rested a black memory card wrapped in clear plastic.
Khloe’s chest tightened.
Harrison did not touch it with his bare hands. He used a clean handkerchief and carefully lifted it from the opening.
There was also a folded strip of paper.
He opened it.
The message contained only eleven words.
Your fall was not the end. It was the first warning.
Khloe instinctively pulled Nora closer.
“Evan and Judith are both in prison,” she whispered. “They can’t hurt us anymore.”
Harrison stared at the memory card.
“They may not be the people who left this.”
A courthouse security officer noticed them standing beside the opened plaque and approached.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Cole?”
Harrison slipped the card into his pocket.
“The plaque was loose.”
The officer’s eyes moved toward the empty space behind it.
For one brief second, his expression changed.
Fear.
Then it disappeared.
“I’ll call maintenance,” he said.
“What’s your name?” Harrison asked.
“Officer Rourke.”
“Were you working here on the day my sister fell?”
Rourke hesitated.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Harrison stepped closer.
“I remember every officer who testified during the trial.”
Rourke’s jaw tightened.
“I wasn’t called to testify.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
The officer glanced toward the courthouse entrance.
A black sedan was parked across the street.
Its windows were tinted.
As Harrison looked toward it, the sedan pulled away from the curb.
Officer Rourke immediately turned and walked back inside.
Khloe watched him disappear behind the glass doors.
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he was watching the car instead of watching me.”
Harrison called his private investigator, Leo Grant, and instructed him to obtain traffic-camera footage from the surrounding streets.
Khloe remained silent until they reached the car.
“Harrison, I don’t want Nora growing up surrounded by this.”
“She won’t.”
“You said that after the trial.”
“And I meant it.”
“Then tell me the truth. Are we in danger?”
Harrison looked at the courthouse.
People moved through the doors as if nothing had happened.
Attorneys carried files.
Families waited for hearings.
Reporters gathered near the stairs.
Everything appeared normal.
That was what disturbed him most.
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted.
Khloe buckled Nora into her car seat.
When she lifted the pink blanket, a small white envelope fell onto the pavement.
It had not been there before.
Her name was written across the front.
Inside was a recent photograph of Nora sleeping in her crib.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
The child survived. That was never part of the plan.
