Chapter 5
The room smelled of old heating and instant soup.
There were two beds — one rumpled with Lily's things, crayon drawings stacked on the pillow, and one where Anna had clearly been lying.
A plastic bag from a pharmacy sat on the narrow table beside two prescription bottles and a half-drunk glass of water.
Harold sat in the single chair.
Lily climbed onto her bed with the quiet efficiency of a child used to making herself small.
Anna sat on the edge of her bed and looked at the floor.
"Twenty years," he said.
Not an accusation.
Just the fact of it.
"I know."
"I thought you were gone.
I thought—" He stopped.
"Your mother never recovered.
She passed four years ago, Anna.
She never stopped—"
"I know." Her voice cracked on the second word.
"Victor told me."
Harold went very still.
"Victor told you your mother d*ed?"
"Victor told me a lot of things." She looked up.
"That's the part you need to understand.
Victor didn't just know where I was." She paused, and what she said next landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"Victor is the reason I left."
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## CHAPTER 4: What Victor Did
Harold didn't speak for a long moment.
Outside, a truck passed on the road.
The heating unit clicked and rattled.
Lily turned a page of her book with the careful deliberateness of a child pretending not to listen.
"Tell me," Harold said.
Anna wrapped her arms around herself.
"How much do you know about the company?
About what Victor was doing around the time I disappeared?"
"I handed him more responsibility that year.
He'd asked for it.
I thought he was ready."
"He was ready." Her voice was flat.
"Just not for what you thought."
She stood and went to the narrow table.
Opened the drawer.
Pulled out a small envelope, worn at the corners, and brought it back.
"Thomas kept these," she said.
"He told me to guard them.
I didn't understand why until a few years ago."
May you like
Inside the envelope were three photographs.
Harold took them.
