Chapter 16 - THE PHOTOGRAPHS CAME DOWNWe did not return immediately to the mansion.
When police released it, Mia asked to visit.
The living room looked unchanged.
Glass doors.
Pool.
Cinematic daylight across expensive furniture.
But the family photographs were gone.
Evidence technicians had removed them.
Mia stood where Elena held the bat.
Leo crawled beneath the coffee table.
I almost pulled him out.
Then stopped.
He needed to choose.
He touched the hidden compartment.
“Mom made this.”
“Yes.”
“Did she know Elena would come?”
“She knew Nolan might send someone.”
“Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She tried to protect you from carrying it.”
Leo considered that.
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“But she tried.”
“Yes.”
Mia asked whether the mansion could be sold.
I said yes.
She asked whether selling meant Elena won.
“No.”
“Then sell it.”
The house went on the market.
Before photographs were taken, we removed every surveillance device and repaired every wall.
The coffee table came with us.
Not as evidence.
As something Sophia created.
We placed no photographs on it at first.
Mia decided when she was ready.
The first was Sophia holding both children.
The second showed Claire protecting them after Nolan’s attack.
The third showed all three of us in family therapy, laughing because Leo put a sticker on my forehead.
No photograph of Elena remained in common rooms.
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The children could keep or discard their private copies.
History belonged to them too.
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