“I’ve been looking for fourteen years,” the text said. “I’m twenty-six. I found your article because his name came up in a search I run every few months. I’m not trying to cause problems. I just need to know.”
Cloe sat up in the dark and read it three times.
Twenty-six. Which meant Marshall had been twenty when Jonah was born. The photograph made sense now. The youth in his face. The way he had looked at that baby with something present and real that she had never seen in nine years of marriage.
He had practised presence with someone else’s child and then decided it was too much work.
She typed back before she could stop herself.
I believe you. I’m not Marshall and I can’t speak for him. But I have information you may need. Can you talk tomorrow morning?
The response came in under a
