The line went quiet again. Nathan glanced in the rearview mirror. Aiden was asleep in the back seat, curled up next to Ranger.
Nathan reached back and gently brushed the boy’s messy hair aside.
A kid with ripped clothes and empty pockets had just opened a door that never should’ve been locked.
The next morning, after dropping Aiden at his mother’s small apartment so he could rest, Nathan drove straight to Victor Harlow’s mansion without warning. The guards opened the gate immediately—no one imagined what was coming.
Victor was in his study, reading the paper, when Nathan walked in. The lawyer flashed a perfectly practiced smile.
“Nathan. What a surprise.”
Nathan didn’t bother with greetings. He stepped to the desk and dropped an old, cracked plastic badge onto the polished wood. It was Mike Darden’s shop ID—the mechanic’s badge they’d found near the factory in a pile of moldy papers and the remains of another torn note.
“Does this name sound familiar?” Nathan asked.
Victor adjusted his glasses and leaned closer.
“Mike Darden,” he said slowly. “Your wife’s mechanic, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Correct,” Nathan replied. “I found his ID in the same place I found Lauren’s necklace. And her note. She’s alive, Victor.”
For a split second—barely the length of a blink—Victor’s face lost its color. Then he quickly recovered and forced a sympathetic smile.
“You’ve been grieving for years,” he said. “It’s natural to want to believe—”
Nathan slammed his fist on the desk so hard the pen holder jumped.
“I found evidence,” he snapped. “I found the dog. And I know you closed the case and paid off the mechanic. Why?”
A bead of sweat formed at Victor’s temple.
“I followed orders,” he muttered. “It was… safer for everyone. There was a lot on the line.”
“Whose orders?” Nathan pushed.
Victor said nothing. The silence stretched, thick with tension.
From the hall came a sharp crash—a vase shattering. Aiden, too nervous to wait in the car, had wandered in and accidentally bumped it.
Victor stepped out and spotted the boy.
“And who’s this kid?” he asked.
“He’s the one who saw her,” Nathan answered. “He’s the reason I found any of this.”
Victor’s gaze locked onto Aiden with a cold, calculating interest the boy recognized right away. It was the look he’d seen in dangerous men in bad neighborhoods—the look someone got when they spotted something they wanted.
Victor exhaled and set the newspaper aside.