Finnley had heard those words before.
From prosecutors.
From people who had once called him family.
From strangers who had never bothered to hear his side.
But hearing them from Reagan now felt different.
Because she wasn’t simply reminding him of the conviction.
She was using it to decide whether he deserved to mourn his own father.
Finnley looked past her into the entrance hall.
The family photographs were gone.
His mother’s portrait was missing.
His father’s favorite hat was nowhere in sight.
Expensive furniture had replaced the pieces Finnley remembered. The familiar smell of coffee and cedar polish had disappeared beneath artificial air freshener.
“Let me in,” Finnley said. “I just want to see his room.”
“His room doesn’t exist anymore.”
Reagan’s answer came without hesitation.
“I remodeled it.”
Then Finnley heard footsteps on the stairs.
Carter came down slowly, smiling before he even reached the bottom.
Finnley’s stepbrother had spent years buried in gambling debts, yet he looked completely comfortable in the house Finnley had just been told was no longer his concern.
“Well, look who’s back,” Carter said. “The ex-con has come for his inheritance.”
Finnley stepped toward the doorway.
Reagan moved immediately, blocking him.
“If you ever set foot on this property again, I’ll call the police. With your criminal record, that won’t end well for you.”
Then she closed the door.
Softly.
Almost politely.
That hurt more than a slammed door could have.
Finnley stood there for several seconds, staring at the black door that had replaced the one he remembered from childhood.
He could have shouted.
He could have pounded on it.
He could have demanded answers.
But he had already lost three years of his life trying to convince people he wasn’t the man they had accused him of being.
He wasn’t going to give Reagan another excuse to call him dangerous.
So he walked away.
There was only one place he could think of going.
Pinecrest Cemetery.
His father had always said he wanted to rest beside Finnley’s mother when his time came.
