Page 8

We drove through Chicago before sunrise.

I barely spoke.

Lily slept in the back seat.

Noah kept checking his mirrors.

“Tell me something,” I said.

“What?”

“Why are you helping me?”

He stayed silent.

I waited.

Finally, he said:

“Because I know what it’s like to lose someone because you trusted the wrong person.”

I looked at him.

“My brother disappeared when I was nineteen.”

“What happened?”

“He was investigating Sentinel Axis before I founded it.”

“Your own company?”

“Yes.”

“What did he discover?”

Noah’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.

“That people were using stolen identities to control entire lives.”

“Like Ryan?”

“Worse.”

We reached the hospital.

The entrance was almost empty.

Noah had arranged access through a former employee.

We entered through a side door.

The maternity records were stored downstairs.

A hospital employee opened the archive.

I gave her Lily’s name.

She searched.

Then frowned.

“That’s strange.”

“What?”

“There are two records.”

“Two?”

“One is your daughter’s official birth record.”

“And the second?”

She hesitated.

“A research file.”

My heart stopped.

“Research?”

The woman opened it.

The file contained one photograph.

A newborn baby.

Lily.

But the date was wrong.

The photograph had been taken three days before Lily was born.

I stared at Noah.

He stared back.

Then the hospital employee whispered:

“That’s impossible.”

Noah pointed to the bottom of the screen.

“Not impossible.”

A name was listed there.

The doctor responsible for the file.

Dr. Daniel Whitman.

Noah went completely still.

“That’s my father.”