Now I was the one feeling flustered. My cheeks heated up. I looked at the ground. “You know our eyes are the same color.” I could hear my mom’s voice in my head: Just take the compliment. Say thank you.

But it was too late. I’d already screwed up.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “Sure, mine are blue. But yours are blue-blue.”

I giggled, bobbed my head up to look at him. Blue-blue. I like it.

Amelia’s had been blue as well, when she was an infant. But when she was about nine months old they started to change, morphing into a deep, chocolate brown. Whitney thought they were beautiful.

Dan thought they were suspicious.

“How did she end up with brown eyes when we both have blue? Isn’t that an impossibility?”

“Pretty sure that’s a myth, Dan.”

Quiet a moment, he scratched his chin. “He has brown eyes, right?”

“Who?”

“You know who,” he said, pursing his lips like he’d eaten something sour.

Whitney blew out a breath. “Yeah, so? He has nothing to do with Amelia.”

“I saw you leaving his place that morning, right before you got pregnant. I know what happened.”

“I told you it wasn’t like that. When are you gonna let this go?”

“You okay?” Natalie sidled up to her, yanking her thoughts back to the present. With a shaky hand, she set the picture back down and smiled at her friend. When Whitney first met Natalie, she never imagined they’d become this close. Natalie was a client that eventually turned into her boss, and Whitney didn’t expect their relationship to become anything more. As a single parent, Whitney didn’t have a lot of time for friends. Mostly, she’d had acquaintances. But as she worked closely with Natalie a friendship evolved. Natalie had so many qualities Whitney liked—her fierce protectiveness and loyalty being right there at the top. Whitney knew she was the kind of person she wanted in her corner.

“I just can’t believe this is happening,” Whitney said, raking her fingers through her hair.

“We’ll find her,” Natalie said firmly.

Sandavol stood over Amelia’s desk while McAvoy studied a picture on Amelia’s dresser. He picked it up, nodded toward Whitney. “This you?”

Whitney was already bobbing her head before making it over to him, her mouth already forming the letter Y. She knew the photo well. It was one of her favorites of her and Amelia. But when she reached McAvoy, her stomach dropped, her mouth suspended around the word yes that was now wedged in her throat, unable to launch.

It wasn’t the photo she’d been expecting. The one Amelia had had on her dresser for years.

McAvoy must have registered her shock, because he said, “Everything okay?”