When he didn’t say anything more, I glanced up to see a look I knew well. He had more he had to say and wasn’t sure he should.

“What is it?” I asked.

He hesitated.

“Gabriel…” I said.

He cleared his throat. “If you discover you are correct in the basic facts, it would only be discomforting. If you are right about the rest—which is your worst scenario rather than an honest fear—it will be difficult and upsetting. Yet…”

“Yes?”

“It isn’t what you may discover that has you so upset. It’s what you’ll need to do to get those answers.”

Tears prickled my eyelids, and I laid my head against him again to hide it, nodding instead.

“I do understand, Olivia,” he said. “Just because I could do it myself without experiencing the same emotional response does not mean I can’t place myself in your position.”

“I know.”

“You’ve made the right decision. I only wish you didn’t need to do this.”

I twisted to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I told Ioan I didn’t want this meeting for something as fanciful as hugging my father. That was true. And yet that wish wasn’t as fanciful as I liked to pretend. I had not hugged my father in twenty-three years. It didn’t matter if, for most of those, I’d forgotten he even existed. Willfully forgotten, pushing aside the painful memories of a toddler who knew only that her beloved father had left her and so she banished him in punishment.

Now that I had Todd back, I felt every one of those years of separation. Seeing him through a Plexiglas barrier made me feel like a chained dog, going mad watching my goal only a few feet away, unattainable.

I had no idea what strings Ioan had to pull, but we’d been at the prison less than an hour before a guard came to take us through. A guard who I knew, instinctively, was not really a guard at all.

“Thank Ioan for me,” I said as the man led us, wordlessly, down a hall. “And thank you.”

The guard snorted. “You can thank me by getting Todd out of here. Which will get us both out. It’s been a long twenty years.”

“You’ve been here since—”

“It was the best way to help him. And I shouldn’t complain. I get to go home every day.”

“Does Todd know you’re…?”