Chapter 2 - The Saturday SecretA flight attendant offered them the quiet crew lounge behind the main cabin. Desmond agreed immediately. Once they were alone, Beckett sat on a narrow couch while Ivy stayed asleep against his chest.

Desmond set the photograph on the table between them. "Start from the beginning."

Beckett hesitated. "I met Camille last year at the Brighton Youth Arts Center."

Desmond frowned — he'd never heard her mention it. "Why was she there?"

"The center runs a Saturday music program. I play piano."

Camille had quietly supported dozens of charities, but Desmond had thought he knew where her time went. Apparently he'd been wrong.

"What did she want from you?"

Beckett looked surprised by the question. "Nothing."

"People rarely want nothing."

He looked directly at Desmond. "Maybe people around you don't."

The words weren't disrespectful. That somehow made them land harder.

Beckett explained that Camille had come to one of his performances, then returned the following Saturday, then the next. Eventually she started helping with books, transportation costs, extra piano lessons.

"I asked her why she kept helping me," Beckett said. "She told me my mother once helped someone in her family."

Desmond leaned forward. "Your mother's name?"

"Serena Rowe."

The name meant nothing to him. "Is she still around?"

Beckett lowered his gaze. "She passed away two years ago."

Something softened in Desmond. Beckett continued — his mother had raised him and his younger sister, Maisie, mostly alone. When her health began declining, Beckett had helped care for Maisie. That was why he knew how to hold babies. That was why Ivy seemed so natural in his arms.

Then Desmond asked the question that had been bothering him. "Why are you traveling to Seattle alone?"

Beckett reached into his backpack and pulled out a folded note. "Camille told me to take this flight and meet someone named Corinne Voss."

Desmond unfolded it. Camille's handwriting covered three lines.

Take the flight. Meet Corinne. Do not decide what the truth means until you hear everything.

Desmond read it twice. Five weeks earlier, Camille had told him she needed to handle a "family matter" during their planned Seattle trip. He'd assumed it was paperwork. Now he wondered whether she'd arranged something far larger.

His phone vibrated. His attorney, Priya Nair, had replied to the message he'd sent minutes earlier.

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Do not let Beckett leave after you land. Corinne Voss has a sealed file Camille asked us to release only when both of you are together.

Desmond passed the phone to Beckett. The teenager read it quietly, then whispered, "She intended for us to meet."