Page 112 of Her Wild Coast Refuge

Instead, I use my knife to cut in the opposite direction. A section of the resin cracks, and I cringe. If I do more, the whole picture could crack in half. Crap. I manage to cut around the top curve of the picture, and when I’m moving down the other side, the rest of the seal pops free. Cringing, I lift it from the locket with pincers and give it an inspection with the loupe. It’s okay. A little resin buckling on the far edge that popped, but hopefully I can fix that.

Inside the hollow of the locket is a black square, with a thin silver stripe. It’s tiny—no bigger than my pinky nail, and flat. I don’t know what it is, but it looks very out of place. Prickles climb up my spine.

What the fuck is this? What is it doing here?

With my knife blade, I poke along its edges, but it doesn’t budge.

I release it from the vice and give it a little shake, but nothing comes loose. When I turn it over, the dent matches up with where the little square is seated. Maybe the impact wedged it into the frame.

I take a picture of it and shoot it via text to Brian, who knows about modern gadgets.

Any idea what this is?

While I wait for his reply, I stretch and shake out my fingers.

Looks like a UDP chip

English please

The working part of a memory stick

Like for a USB port?

Exactly. Where did you see it?

Inside my mom’s locket

My phone rings.

“Hold on,” Brian says. “What is a UDP chip doing in your mom’s locket?”

I gaze at the tiny little box, shaking my head. “I don’t know. It’s not…dangerous, is it?”

“No,” Brian replies in a firm voice. “At least not like that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Flash drives store information.”

“Okay, but why would it be in the locket? It was completely hidden behind a picture I had to cut from the frame with a razor.”

“I don’t know. Could your mom have put it there for safekeeping? Maybe it has important family documents, or pictures?”

This doesn’t sound like my mom. “Could it have been there all along?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t think of why an artist would do that. Where did the locket come from?”

“My dad bought it for her when I was born.”

Brian releases a slow sigh. “Does anyone else in your family know about this?”

The prickles spread to my neck and up the back of my head, vibrating my hair follicles. “Maybe I should call Hunter.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think too.”

I end the call and stare at my dismantled locket, confused. Does this mean the locket wasn’t a gift made out of love, but instead it’s a pawn in some weird game?

Being careful with the locket, I slide everything back into the envelope, then head outside. It’s a perfect late October day of cold sunshine, the distant peaks dusted with fresh snow. I sit on the stoop and try to make sense of what I found.

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