“Yep, you led me right to the truth. It took a while, but I saw my father’s photo in a yearbook, and it all came clear.”

“I loved him, you know. Sean was such a sweetheart.”

“I’m curious why you never told Mom and Dad his name?”

“I didn’t want to ruin his life. He had such big plans.”

“Like enlisting so he could get killed in the Gulf War? It never occurred to you that if you married him, or at the very least admitted the truth, Dad might have hired Sean at Gracey Group? Or sent you both to college?”

“I...guess I didn’t think of that.”

I thought it was more likely that Wendy hadn’t known exactly who my father was, not until I’d turned into the spitting image of Sean Riley. The thought stung, but it made sense. Claire Durant had intimated as much. My sister, she’d said, had always had a lot of boyfriends.

“Well, thanks for giving birth to me,” I said. “I’m glad you went through with it.”

“I was seventeen, Ryan. I did my best. And I didn’t want to give you up, but Mom and Dad made me. Then I had to come home and pretend I was your sister. It was horrible. You have no idea.”

Anger boiled inside me, but a small, rational voice told me to stay calm. In order to get to the bottom of everything, Wendy had to continue to call me.

“I’m sure it was tough.” My tone was credible, if not warm.

“I wanted to tell you, I promise, but Mom wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t want you to know. I guess even now, after all these years, I still couldn’t go against her. She spent all those years raising you, and what was I going to do? Waltz in and tell you I was your real mother? So I let you go on a little quest, hoping you might realize the truth.”

“Why the subterfuge? So I wouldn’t tell Mom I learned it directly from you?”

“That, and because I think people ignore whatever they don’t really want to know. I thought that you’d only figure out the whole truth if you were ready. And if you weren’t, you would stop looking and push whatever you’d learned aside so you could go on believing what you always had. I didn’t want you to be hurt. I love you.” Now that I had stopped filtering every word through the bonds of family, I could hear everything she didn’t say. I want you to believe this because I need your help. If I pretend to love you, you can’t turn me in.

I had a brand-new appreciation for all the people I’d ever investigated, all those poor souls who had repeated far-fetched stories they’d been told by somebody they loved, never imagining they were passing on lies.

“So you sent me to Claire.”

“Everything else is so awful now, I wanted that one little thing. For you to know. For you to love me for the person I really am in your life.”