Everett looked at the timestamp. He looked at Naomi's face in the photo instead. He chose to believe the photo.
The final blow came ten days after that. His mother's sapphire brooch went missing from the home safe. It had been in the family for three generations. Two days later, a cleaning service found it. Wrapped inside a scarf in Naomi's dresser. The service had been hired quietly by Paige. Everett never knew about the arrangement.
That was the night Naomi stood crying in their kitchen. That was the night Everett told her to leave.
Paige stayed close through all of it. She brought him coffee during the divorce filings. She sat beside him at the lawyer's office, saying almost nothing. Just present. Everett mistook her silence for loyalty. It was something else entirely.
Now, a year later, sitting with Silas's document, Everett finally understood.
"I need to see her again," he told Silas the next morning. "Naomi. Today."
