Part 2
For several seconds, I could not move.
The private investigator’s office seemed to narrow around me, walls bending inward beneath the old fluorescent lights. Somewhere beyond the closed door, a phone rang twice and went unanswered. The air smelled of burnt coffee, printer ink, and dust—ordinary smells, careless smells—while the paper in my hand tried to pull the floor out from under my life.
If Rowan ever learns the truth, make sure he never finds out what happened to the third baby.
The third baby.
Not a phrase. Not a mistake. Not something my mind had invented because guilt had finally found a way to punish me.
There had been three.
I stared at the note until the letters blurred. My hand had gone numb around the edge of the paper. Across the desk, Gregory Voss—the man I had paid more than enough money to tell me the truth during my divorce—sat frozen in his chair, his skin gone the color of unpainted plaster.
