I looked at Bo.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said quietly.
Then he added something unexpected.
“You should know there was a second instruction attached to Walter’s letter.”
The man immediately looked up.
“What instruction?”
The lawyer ignored him.
His voice remained calm.
Professional.
Measured.
“Walter requested that whoever found Bo receive a locked cedar box stored at my office.”
I frowned.
“A box?”
“Yes.”
“What’s inside?”
A pause.
Long enough to matter.
“I haven’t opened it.”
That surprised me.
“Why not?”
“Because Walter specifically ordered it remain sealed until Bo chose where he wanted to stay.”
The man barked a laugh.
“That’s insane.”
But nobody else laughed.
Because Walter sounded exactly like the man from the photograph.
A man who understood that some promises aren’t made to people.
They’re made to the creatures who love them without conditions.
The lawyer continued.
“There is one more thing.”
My stomach tightened.
“The box contains a handwritten note marked with your name.”
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“Walter didn’t know me.”
“No,” the lawyer said softly.
“He didn’t.”
The heat suddenly felt heavier.
The highway seemed farther away.
“Then why write my name?”
The lawyer exhaled slowly.
“Because the note wasn’t written before he died.”
Nobody spoke.
Not me.
Not Janine.
Not even the man.
“What are you talking about?”
The lawyer’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“The note was written eight years ago.”
I stared at Bo.
Confused.
The dog stared back.
Waiting.
The lawyer continued.
“Walter never knew who would find Bo.”
Another pause.
“But he believed someone eventually would.”
A chill ran through me despite the heat.
“Eight years ago,” the lawyer said, “Walter lost someone on this exact stretch of highway.”
The world seemed to tilt.
The traffic noise disappeared.
Everything disappeared except those words.
This exact stretch of highway.
My grip tightened around the wallet.
And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about Walter anymore.
Because I knew this road.
I knew it far too well.
The lawyer spoke carefully now.
“As I understand it, the person Walter lost that day was a little girl.”
My breath stopped.
No.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Not here.
Not this road.
Not this story.
The lawyer continued.
“She was seven years old.”
The wallet slipped from my hand.
It hit the ground.
Bo flinched.
My knees nearly gave out.
Because thirty years earlier, on a scorching afternoon just like this one…
I had been seven years old.
And I had lost my father on this exact highway.
The same highway where Walter’s dog had been left waiting.
The same highway where Walter somehow expected a stranger to stop.
The same highway where fate had just placed Bo directly in front of me.
And for the first time since this began, I realized Walter Grayson might not have been a stranger at all.
