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I'd spent twenty-two years wondering about my father.

Mom never talked about him.

Whenever I asked, she'd give me the same answers.

Things were complicated.

He wasn't around.

We didn't need him.

And eventually, I stopped asking.

Because she was right about one thing.

We didn't need him.

Mom gave me everything.

Love. Security. A home. More embarrassing childhood photographs than any human being should be forced to endure.

But after she died, I found that obituary tucked inside a box of private papers.

A man who looked disturbingly like me.

Dead for four years.

And suddenly, all those questions came rushing back.

Who was he?

Why hadn't Mom told me?

And why keep his obituary if he meant nothing to her?

I swallow the familiar lump in my throat.

“Get it together, Madison.”

I didn't come all this way to cry over a newspaper clipping.

I came for answers.

And Torch might have them.

His name appears throughout the investigation.

He was there when the building burned. He questioned the findings. He insisted something wasn't right.

If anyone knows more about what happened that night, it's him.

I stare at the article a moment longer, wondering what it'll take to get the stubborn biker to talk to me.

A dull ache pulses behind my eyes.

Great.

A headache.