“You don’t have to do this,” Grayson murmured, his voice a low, warm hum that cut through the ice in Lyra’s veins.
“Yes, I do.”
The next few photographs were of the victim’s effects.A wallet. Credit cards. The driver’s license they used to identify him.Lyra stared at a close-up of the license, andThomas Valasquezstared back.
Lyra stopped breathing.
She flipped to the next page and the next and the next and the next until she was through with the police report and onto the results of a private investigation that was date-stamped as being less than a year old. The PI’s notes made it clear that the investigator had been charged with finding a teenage girl, the daughter of the dead man.
“Eve was looking for you,” Grayson inferred. “My guess would be that she intercepted our calls somehow and—”
Lyra barely even heard him as she made her way through the PI’s report, the world threatening to spin around her. She stopped on the second-to-last page, which contained copies of two more driver’s licenses and a mugshot. She registered the names.
Thomas Aquila. Tomasso Drakos. Tomás Reyes.
“I don’t understand,” Lyra said harshly. Aquila, Drakos, Reyes, and Valasquez—they were all very clearly the same man. But that man—
“Lyra?”
These photographs, all of them—
“This isn’t him,” Lyra whispered. The man in these pictures had eyes that looked nothing like Lyra’s. The shape was wrong. The color was wrong. And the rest of the man’s features—Lyra couldn’t visualize a damn thing, let alone her father’s face, but sheknew.
Looking at these photographs, at this man, Lyra feltnothing. She couldn’t so much as hear her father’s voice.
Not him. Not him. Not him.Lyra flipped to the final page in the file.One last photograph.In it, the man from all the other photographs—the man that no part of Lyra recognized—was holding a dark-haired, chubby-cheeked baby who looked to be clapping her hands.
And standing next to him in that picture was Lyra’s mother.This doesn’t make sense.None of this made any sense.
The next thing Lyra knew, she had her phone in her hand.
Her mom picked up on the third ring. “If this is a telemarketer, be warned that I’m a writer, and I am always looking for people to fictionally kill.”
“Mom. It’s me.”
“Lyra? This isn’t your number. Say something to prove you’re you and not an AI hoax.”
“Toothpick,” Lyra said, her voice coming out hoarse. “Ice cube. Bikini bottoms.”
“Things that could be weapons. Itisyou!”
“Mom.” Lyra stared at the photo in front of her and tried to form a question—a coherent, cogent question—but came up short. “I’m switching you over to a video call,” Lyra said, and then she did, aiming the camera at the page.
“A picture of you and me with Tomás.” Lyra’s mom was infamous for rolling with the punches. “Not his best angle, but you’re adorable, and I look cute.”
“No.” Lyra’s voice shook.
“I assure you, Lyra Catalina, those bangs made perfect sense at the time.”
None of this makes sense.Lyra couldn’t form a single word. She couldn’t even feel Grayson next to her anymore.
“What’s this about, baby? Where did you get that photo? You know if you have questions about your bio-father, you can always—”
“No.”Lyra felt like the word had been ripped out of her, like the earth should have trembled with the sound that had just left her mouth.“You always said he left when I was three days old.” But that wasn’t the really the problem. That wasn’t—
I’m your father, Lyra.
Happy birthday, Lyra.
