“Well, good for him.” She would’ve clicked away, except that when she scrolled down, she noticed the Wikipedia biography continued with a section labeled “Early Life.”

He’d told her he was born in Denver. But there was a lot he hadn’t said. His childhood hadn’t been easy. His mother had gotten pregnant and dropped out of high school. His father, who’d been a classmate, had dropped out, too, after which he worked odd jobs until he became a plumber. Seth was born about that time, and they added one more child before the marriage broke down. After Seth’s father left the family, his mother fell on hard times. She and her three kids became homeless and had to live out of a car for a few months, after which his mother decided she couldn’t care for her children any longer.

No wonder he’d been in and out of juvie, as he’d called it, when he was growing up and had gone to a school for troubled youth.

What had a young Seth been like? And what had led to the time he’d spent in juvenile hall?

She tried searching with other keywords in an attempt to find out and discovered an interview he gave right after he launched his career, during which he made an oblique reference to being involved in something where two other kids had been tried as adults and gone to prison.

“That sounds serious,” she murmured to herself. He didn’t seem like a criminal...

She continued to look through the pictures she found online but stopped scrolling when she found one of Seth with a beautiful blonde who was almost as tall as he was. They appeared to be at a big charity gala or some other function. He wore a tux, and the woman, who was wearing an evening gown, had her hair done with old-fashioned finger waves, making her look like a 1950s movie star.

“Who’s that?” Tia clicked on it to be able to read the caption. American artist and sculptor Seth Turner and his wife, Shiloh.

She rocked back. “Wife? You told me you weren’t married.” So...why did he lie? And where was Shiloh now?

They had to be divorced, she decided. Most people would have said so. But maybe he hadn’t wanted to get into it.

She searched the name Shiloh Turner, just to be sure, but found they hadn’t divorced.

Seth’s wife had died three years ago—only two days before Christmas.

Eleven