“Is everything here?” Vale asked, standing over my shoulder.

I began to carefully sift through the files, my fingers tracing the hand-written labels.

“The land deeds for the Virginia property are here,” I said, lifting a heavy document with a red seal.

“And the original trust agreement from nineteen-eighty-eight.”

As I moved a stack of ledger books, my hand brushed against something small and hard at the bottom of the chest.

It was tucked into a velvet-lined side pocket that I had never noticed before.

I reached down and pulled it out.

It was a small, black digital voice recorder, its plastic casing dusty but intact.

I turned it over in my hand, noticing a small label stickered to the back.

The handwriting on the label was shaky, but unmistakable.

It was my father’s handwriting, written shortly before his passing.

The label had a date from three years ago, during the time I was deployed in Iraq.

My thumb hovered over the play button.

“What is that, Tessa?” Vale asked, leaning in closer.

“I don’t know,” I said, my voice barely audible above the hum of the facility’s generator.