Betrayal

Meg was still able to keep up with his words, but they’d begun to lose meaning. The feel of Charlie’s hand on her shoulder gave her courage. “Your father believes that my mother poisoned my father?”

Ezra nodded once, sharply.

Charlie’s grip tightened, and Meg pressed down hard on the lids of all of the boxes in her mind—including the one that held memories of her da. Thoughts of him pushing her on the swing, just under the tree there. The pram she’d pushed around the garden after he brought it back from his trip to New York. The lilacs he’d pick and tuck behind her ear, calling her his little flower when he did so. Without wiping the tears from her cheeks, Meg looked Ezra directly in the eyes and said, “What happened to Charlotte?”

“I don’t know,” Ezra mumbled, seemingly shocked that she’d reversed topics so quickly.

“What happened to her?” she asked again, mor