Mitchell kept his voice steady.
“
Did your mother give you anything?”
Chloe nodded.
She reached into her coat again and pulled out a tiny plastic charm shaped like a blue star.
Inside was a folded scrap of paper.
Mitchell opened it carefully.
The handwriting was shaky, but readable.
Gavin did not kill me. Do not trust the file. Find the red box before they move it.
At the bottom was a name.
Gavin’s wife’s name.
And beneath that, two words that made Mitchell’s blood run cold.
Forgive me.
By noon, the execution was formally stayed.
By two, emergency attorneys were inside the prison.
By four, state investigators were driving toward Chloe’s grandmother’s house with a warrant.
But Warden Mitchell did not wait for them to find the red box.
He went to the records archive.
The original trial file had been sealed in a restricted evidence cabinet after Gavin’s final appeal.
