“Of course.”
“What?”
“CEO.”
She almost smiled through the phone.
“Private lab in Denver.”
“I can drive.”
“I’ll send a car.”
“No.”
“Daniel—”
“I own a truck.”
“It’s two hours.”
“My truck understands highways.”
Evelyn paused.
“All right.”
Then she said, “Can you bring the photograph?”
Daniel looked toward it on the kitchen counter.
“Yes.”
“And anything else?”
He knew what she meant.
Anything that belonged to Maddy.
“Yes.”
Daniel opened the cedar box he had avoided for years.
Inside lay fragments of a childhood.
A pink hair ribbon.
One tiny sneaker.
Three drawings.
A preschool picture.
A wooden horse Daniel had carved badly.
And the stuffed rabbit.
Not the same rabbit from the county fair photograph.
Maddy owned two.
One had disappeared with her.
The other stayed behind.
Daniel packed everything carefully.
Then Sophie called again.
He answered.
“Dad.”
“Morning.”
“You sound weird.”
“I’m tired.”
“You always sound tired. This is different.”
Daniel sat.
He should tell her.
But saying it aloud made the possibility more dangerous.
“Soph.”
“Yeah?”
“Something happened.”
She immediately became serious.
“What?”
Daniel looked at the stuffed rabbit.
“I may have found Maddy.”
Silence.
Sophie had grown up with a missing sister she never met.
Every year on Maddy’s birthday, Daniel cooked grilled chicken.
Sophie understood the empty chair better than anyone.
Finally she whispered, “What do you mean may have?”
Daniel told her.
Not everything.
Enough.
The diner.
The bracelet.
The birthmark.
Sophie cried.
Then became suspicious.
“Dad, don’t assume anything until DNA.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know. You waited eighteen years.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“When did you become the responsible one?”
“College.”
“Waste of tuition.”
She ignored him.
“What’s her name?”
“Evelyn Carter.”
Silence.
Then Sophie shouted.
“THE CEO?”
Daniel held the phone away.
“Yes.”
“Carter Aerospace Evelyn Carter?”
“I guess.”
“Dad.”
“What?”
“You maybe-found my missing sister and she’s literally a billionaire?”
“Millionaire probably.”
“THAT is your correction?”
Daniel laughed for the first time that morning.
It helped.
At the Denver laboratory, Evelyn arrived without assistants.
Daniel expected security.
There was none.
She wore jeans, a white blouse, and a long gray coat.
Less CEO.
More person.
She looked at the cardboard box in his hands.
“What’s that?”
“Evidence.”