“You are not going alone,” Mara said.

Naomi closed her hand around the motel key.

“Then stay out of sight.”

“If Victor sees officers, he may run.”

“He has already run for fourteen years.”

A gravelly voice came from the doorway.

“She’ll need someone he doesn’t know you trust.”

Arthur, the restaurant’s sixty-eight-year-old dishwasher, stepped inside carrying an old metal box.

Naomi frowned.

“Arthur, why are you here?”

“Because I recognized Victor.”

He set the box on the table and removed a yellowed notebook.

“Fourteen years ago, I drove a night bus.

I saw a frightened boy at the central station with a man matching Victor.”

Naomi gripped the table.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I did.

The officer said hundreds of people looked like the picture.” Arthur pushed the notebook toward Mara.

“So I wrote down the license plate myself.”

Mara read it aloud.

“KHL-419.”

“That plate belonged to a van registered to Victor’s late sister,” Arthur said.

“I checked the newspaper archives this morning.”

Naomi’s eyes filled.

“You kept this all these years?”

“I kept it because the boy looked back at me through the window.” Arthur’s voice shook.

“I should have stopped that bus.”

“You tried,” Naomi said.

“Now help me finish it.”

Two hours later, Naomi entered Room 17 while Mara listened through a transmitter hidden inside Naomi’s coat button.

Arthur waited in the motel office, watching the rear exit.

Cole stood beside the bed.

“You came,” he said.

“You asked me to.”

He held out a photograph of a woman with Eli and a younger girl.

“That’s Rachel Mercer.

Eli’s mother.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.

Victor said she asked too many questions about the children he placed with families.”

“What children?”

Cole paced toward the window.

“Victor arranged private guardianships.

He changed names, forged papers and told children their parents didn’t want them.”

Naomi touched the photograph.

“Just as he told you about me.”

“I believed him.”

“You were six.”

“I helped him later.”

Naomi’s hand fell.

“What did you do?”

“I delivered documents.

I watched houses.

I told myself the families were dangerous because that’s what he taught me.”

The door swung open.

Victor walked in and locked it behind him.

“I wondered how long guilt would take to make you foolish.”

Cole moved in front of Naomi.

“Let her leave.”

“You invited her.”

“Because I’m done protecting you.”

Victor held up a small electronic detector.

It chirped near Naomi’s coat.

“Take off the button,” he said.

Naomi did not move.

“No.”

Victor tore the transmitter free and crushed it beneath his heel.

“Detective Singh just lost her favorite witness.”

“She heard enough.”

“The walls block the signal.

I chose this room for a reason.”

Victor opened his briefcase and placed a document on the bed.

“Sign this statement saying you accepted money for Caleb.

I’ll tell you where Rachel is.”

“You expect me to trust you?”

“No.

I expect you to care about Eli.”

Cole snatched up the document.

“You said Rachel went away willingly.”

Victor smiled.

“I said what you needed to hear.”

Naomi took the pen.

“If I sign, you release Rachel?”

“And you stop calling Cole your son.”

Cole seized her wrist.

“Don’t.”

Victor’s phone buzzed.

He read the message, and his face hardened.

“What happened?” Naomi asked.

He backed toward the bathroom window.

“Your waitress friend was smarter than she looked.”

“I am the waitress.”

“Not you.”

He climbed through the window and disappeared.

Arthur burst through the door moments later, holding Victor’s forgotten second phone.

“It was under his car seat,” Arthur said.

“And someone just called it.”

The phone rang again.

Naomi answered on speaker.

A little girl whispered, “Mr.

Victor said my brother Eli is never coming home.”