The transfer had been authorized by a company called Northbridge Holdings. The signature belonged to a man named Thomas Reed.

Julian stared at the name.

"I know him."

Adrian turned.

"Who is he?"

"Vale's driver. He used to bring documents to the mansion."

Rebecca folded the page.

"Then we're going to find him."

They spent the next several hours tracing the company through public records and old addresses. Northbridge Holdings had been dissolved, but its former registered agent had moved to another state. The residential care home listed on Catherine's transfer paperwork had also closed.

Every trail ended in a different place.

By late afternoon, Julian had stopped speaking.

He sat in the passenger seat of Rebecca's car, staring through the windshield at the wet road. Adrian drove behind them with Elena and Noah, while Sofia followed in a separate vehicle.

Elena watched Julian through the glass.

She knew that look. It was the expression of someone who had allowed himself to hope and was now trying to calculate how much it would cost to lose that hope again.

She had worn it herself at her mother's funeral.

When they stopped at a gas station, Elena got out and approached him.

"Julian."

He looked up.

"Did you ever stop looking for her?"

He gave a short laugh.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I couldn't keep doing it."

He rubbed his hands together, as if the cold had settled into his bones.

"I searched for years. I called hospitals. I hired people to look through records. I went to places where someone said they'd seen her. Every time, I found nothing. Eventually, I started to feel as if I was betraying her by continuing to look. As if I was refusing to accept that she was gone."

Elena sat beside him on the low wall.

"I did that with Sofia."

He glanced at her.

"I thought she was dead," she continued. "Not every day, but on the days when I couldn't bear the uncertainty, I told myself she was gone. It was easier than imagining that she might be alive somewhere and choosing not to come home."

"Did you hate her?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you still?"

Elena thought about the apartment, the drawing on the refrigerator, the way Sofia had cried when she saw her.

"No. But I'm still angry."

Julian nodded.

"I think those feelings can live in the same room."

She looked at him.

"My mother used to say that love doesn't erase what happened. It only gives you a reason to decide what happens next."

For the first time that day, Julian smiled.

"She sounds like she would have been difficult to argue with."

"She was. Especially when she was right."

They sat in silence for a while.

Then Julian looked toward the road.

"I spent years believing that if I found my mother, everything would make sense. I thought there would be an explanation that would turn all the lost years into something I could understand."

"And now?"

"Now I think I'll have to learn how to live with whatever the explanation is."

Elena touched his arm.

"You don't have to do that alone."

He looked at her, and she saw the beginning of trust in his face.

It was not forgiveness. It was not yet family.

It was a door left open.

That evening, Rebecca received a call from an old colleague who had worked on the Northbridge investigation before it was shut down. The colleague remembered Thomas Reed, but he had not seen him in years. However, he knew of a woman who had been receiving payments through a private trust connected to the company.

The payments had stopped six months earlier.

The recipient's name was Catherine Rowe.

The address belonged to a small house in a coastal town three hours north of the city.

Julian did not wait for Rebecca to finish the call.

He was already walking toward the car.

The coastal road wound through dark pine forests and along stretches of open water. Rain swept across the windshield, and the headlights illuminated only a narrow path through the night. Elena sat beside Adrian, Noah sleeping in a carrier between them.

For most of the drive, neither spoke.

Then Adrian said, "Do you think we'll ever be able to have a normal conversation?"

Elena looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Without someone discovering that we're related, or that our parents lied, or that a person we've known for twenty years has been keeping a secret."

She smiled faintly.

"I don't know. We could try talking about the weather."

He glanced at the rain.

"That seems dangerous too."

A quiet laugh escaped her.

It surprised them both.

For a moment, the tension eased. Adrian looked less like a man whose life had been dismantled and more like the person he might have been if he had grown up in a world where honesty was ordinary.

Then he looked at Noah.

"I never thought I could love a child this much."

Elena glanced at the sleeping baby.

"He's easy to love."

"That's not what I mean."

Adrian took a breath.

"When Vanessa told me she had given birth to him, I believed her because I wanted to. I was overseas for work, and she said the delivery had been difficult. She told me the hospital wouldn't let me speak to her because she needed rest. When I finally came home, Noah was already several weeks old."

He stared at the road ahead.

"I noticed things. The dates didn't make sense. The hospital paperwork looked strange. But every time I asked, she told me I was imagining things. I thought I was being unfair. I thought a good husband should trust his wife."

"Trust isn't the same as refusing to ask questions."

"No."

He glanced at her.

"I should have listened to my instincts."

"Maybe. But you were trying to believe the person you loved."

Adrian looked down at his hands.

"Is that what makes people easy to deceive?"

Elena considered the question.

"Sometimes. But I think the bigger danger is when someone convinces you that asking questions makes you a bad person."

He turned toward the window.

"I don't know what happens to my marriage now."

"Neither do I."

"I don't even know if I want it to survive."

Elena did not tell him what to do. She knew too much about the cost of living according to other people's expectations.

"Then you don't have to decide tonight."

He looked at her.

"You're very good at saying things that sound simple."

"They're not simple. They're just true."

He smiled a little.

"Your mother taught you that too?"

"She taught me that nobody else gets to decide what you can survive."

The road curved along the coast.

Far ahead, a cluster of lights appeared between the trees.

The house stood on a bluff overlooking the water, a modest white cottage with a blue door and a small porch. The garden had gone wild, but someone had planted flowers along the path. A single lamp glowed in the front window.

Julian was out of the car before the engine stopped.

He ran up the steps and knocked.

No answer.