Julian unlocked a dark sedan and opened the rear door for Elena. Adrian climbed into the passenger seat. Margaret remained beside the garage entrance, one hand resting on the frame.

Vanessa stood a few feet behind her.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

Adrian looked at his wife.

"Why?"

"Because I know the people you're going to meet."

"Do you know them well enough to tell us who took me?"

Vanessa's silence answered him.

He opened the passenger door.

"Then you can tell us on the way."

She climbed into the back seat beside Elena, leaving a careful distance between them.

As Julian pulled away from the mansion, Elena looked through the rear window.

Margaret stood beneath the garage lights, growing smaller as the car moved down the drive. For the first time, the old woman looked neither powerful nor frightening.

She looked like someone who had waited too long to speak.

Elena turned toward the road.

The city lay ahead, wet and shining beneath the streetlights. Somewhere among its dark buildings, her sister was waiting—or someone wanted her to believe that she was.

Either way, Elena was done letting other people decide what she was allowed to know.

The address led them to a narrow commercial block on the edge of downtown, where old warehouses stood between new apartment buildings and the windows of late-night businesses glowed against the rain. The building in Sofia's photograph had once housed a printing company. Now its brick facade was stained black beneath the gutters, and a faded sign hung above a steel entrance.

Julian parked half a block away.

"No lights," he said. "No one gets out until we know what's waiting."

Elena leaned forward between the seats.

"That photograph could have been taken weeks ago."

"Or ten minutes ago," Adrian said.

"Then she's here."

"Or they want us to think she is."

She looked at him. "You don't trust anyone."

"I trusted my mother. I trusted my wife. I trusted the people who told me my brother was dead. Look where that got me."

The words came out quietly, without the satisfaction of an accusation. Adrian sounded tired of his own anger.

Elena looked through the windshield at the dark building.

"My mother used to say that distrust can keep you safe for a while. Then, if you aren't careful, it becomes the only thing you know how to do."

Adrian turned toward her.

"What else did she say?"

"That fear is a terrible person to build a home with."

For a moment, his expression softened.

"Your mother sounds like she knew a great deal about people."

"She knew what it cost to be wrong about them."

Julian switched off the engine.

"I'll go around the back. Adrian, stay with Elena."

"No," Adrian said. "I'm coming with you."

"You're injured."

"I'm capable of walking."

"And I'm capable of telling you that we don't need two men stumbling through an unfamiliar building."

Adrian gave him a humorless smile.

"You've been back in my life for less than an hour, and you're already telling me what to do."

"I've been telling people what to do for years. It's one of the few skills poverty and prison have in common."

The word prison settled between them.

Adrian's smile vanished.

"Is that where you've been?"

Julian looked away.

"Not exactly."

"Then explain it."

"Later."

"Everyone keeps telling me later."

Julian opened the door.

"Because every time someone tries to explain, another person gets hurt."

He stepped into the rain before Adrian could respond.

Elena watched his silhouette move along the side of the building. He vanished around the corner, leaving the car filled with the faint smell of damp wool and leather.

Vanessa sat rigidly beside her.

"You shouldn't have come," she said.

Elena turned.

"To find my sister?"

"To get involved in this."

"My mother was involved. My sister was involved. Apparently, Adrian's entire life was involved. When exactly was I supposed to remain uninvolved?"

Vanessa's fingers twisted around the strap of her handbag.

"You think the truth will give you something. An explanation. A person to blame. But some truths don't repair anything."

"That's convenient for people who have spent their lives hiding them."

Vanessa looked at her.

"You think I wanted this?"

"I don't know what you wanted. You've never told the truth long enough for me to find out."

The older woman looked toward the windshield.

"I loved Adrian."

"Then why did you lie to him?"

"Because I was afraid."

"Of what?"

Vanessa's eyes shone in the passing light of a distant car.

"Of becoming the woman nobody chose."

Elena did not answer.

For the first time, Vanessa seemed less like a woman who enjoyed power than someone who had spent years trying to convince herself that she possessed it.

"When I married Adrian, everyone expected me to become Margaret's perfect daughter-in-law," Vanessa continued. "The Cole family had rules for everything. What I wore, who I invited, how I spoke to the press. Margaret told me that marriage was a partnership, but what she meant was that I was expected to protect the family name."

"And you agreed."

"I wanted to belong."

"So did my mother, probably. It didn't make her a thief."

Vanessa closed her eyes.

"No. It didn't."

The admission surprised Elena enough that she almost missed the movement outside the car.

Julian had returned. He opened the rear door and leaned inside.

"The building is empty."

Elena's stomach dropped.

"What?"

"Empty. No furniture, no equipment, no sign anyone has been here recently."

He held out his phone.

On the screen was a photograph of a white envelope resting on a metal table.

"I found that in the back room."

Elena snatched the phone and enlarged the image.

Her name was written on the envelope in handwriting she recognized immediately.

Sofia's.

"Where is it?"

Julian opened his hand.

The envelope lay across his palm.

Elena took it with trembling fingers. Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded twice.

Ellie,

If you are reading this, then you've found the first door. I'm sorry I couldn't come home. I'm sorry I let you believe I had forgotten you. I never forgot you. Not for one day.

Elena pressed the paper to her mouth.

She had not been called Ellie by anyone except Sofia and their mother for years.

The people who destroyed our family aren't all outside the house. One of them has been keeping the truth alive because the truth is the only thing they have left to sell.

Don't trust the recording until you find the original.

Don't trust the person who tells you our mother died because she was sick.

And don't let Noah leave your sight.

The letter ended without a signature.

Elena read it again, searching for another line, another clue, anything that might tell her where Sofia was or why she had written as if every word could be her last.

"She knows we're looking," Elena said.

"Yes," Julian replied.

"She knows about the recording."

"Yes."

"Then why didn't she tell us where she is?"

Julian glanced at Vanessa.

"Because she doesn't know who will read her messages."

Vanessa went still.

Adrian noticed.