His conversation with Calista Dauplaise still had him reeling. If she was to be believed, then everything Gibson had thought the last ten years was based on a lie. All of his assumptions about his life had suddenly pivoted on one simple statement: Duke Vaughn wasn’t a criminal. It had been Benjamin Lombard from the start. Lombard, who had embezzled millions of dollars and framed his friend to cover his ass. Gibson still hadn’t recovered from the shock, couldn’t fully absorb the fact that he’d been right from the beginning. But he hadn’t stayed right. He’d bought Lombard’s story about his father and, to his shame, turned on his father like everyone else.

Another thought ate at him. All these years, he’d believed that his father had killed himself out of guilt for stealing from Lombard. There’d been no note, and it was the only motive that Gibson could imagine. But if Duke Vaughn wasn’t an embezzler, if he wasn’t a criminal, then what had driven him to suicide? It was the question that had haunted Gibson’s life long after he thought he’d answered it. The answer had left him angry and embittered, but at least it’d offered a thin, miserable sense of closure. Now he didn’t even have that.

Gibson remembered the old house perfectly. The sloping front lawn that he’d spent the better part of his childhood raking or mowing. The spiraling elm. Under which Duke had tried in vain to teach his son to throw a curveball. The road-weary Volvo in the driveway that meant his father was home. The creak of the porch steps and the Adirondack chairs that Gibson never found comfortable. The front door that was never locked.

It had been wide open that day.

Gibson had called out to his father but heard no answer. The Eagles were playing on the stereo, the opening lines of “New Kid in Town.” His father loved that stuff: James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Bob Marley & the Wailers, CSN&Y. His “college sunny afternoon, Frisbee music.” Gibson dropped his school backpack at the foot of the stairs and walked through the house, calling again for his father. He remembered having an uneasy feeling because his dad wasn’t due home until Friday, and he could count on one hand the number of times Duke Vaughn had ever been early to anything.

He checked every room twice. The backyard. Duke sometimes visited with the neighbors; he was probably just talking UVA baseball with Mr. Hooper, who worked for the university. That seemed reasonable. Still, Gibson didn’t like that the front door had been wide open. He made another lap around the house and noticed the basement door was open a crack. He hadn’t checked it because no one ever went down there. It was mostly storage, plus a makeshift bedroom for the rare times they had company.