A photograph from the day after a woman disappeared should not exist.

Estate clean-out specialist Nell expects Henry Weller's attic to hold old teaching journals, forgotten photographs, and forty years of family clutter.

Then she finds a picture that changes everything.

The photograph was taken at a Grayhaven educators' dinner on October 22, 1988. Standing in the center is Margaret Vale—a beloved fourth-grade teacher who was officially reported missing the day before.

On the back, someone has written four words:

SHE CAME BACK ALONE.

Henry knows more than he wants to admit. So does retired teacher Sylvia Crowe. And when Nell begins following the photograph's history, she uncovers connections to a vanished scholarship fund, old financial records, a powerful local family, and secrets that several people have spent nearly four decades protecting.

Then a man connected to the photograph is found murdered.

Suddenly the question isn't simply what happened to Margaret Vale.

It's why someone is still willing to kill over it.

With Piper digging into old records, Detective Adrian Shaw trying to keep Nell out of trouble, and Grayhaven's past proving considerably less settled than anyone pretended, Nell must separate old guilt from present-day murder before someone succeeds in making the truth disappear again.

The Photograph in the Attic is Book Two of The Last Box Mysteries, a clean contemporary cozy mystery series featuring small-town secrets, an amateur sleuth, family history, light romance, and the forgotten objects that refuse to stay forgotten.