Dad looked up from the sink, hands covered in dish soap. “Emily—”
“I know you want to protect me. But this is part of my life now. Ryan lied about her. He lied about everything. If Claire knows something about him, about Linda, about the clinic, I need to understand it before my baby is born.”
He dried his hands slowly. “We do it carefully.”
“We?”
“You didn’t think I was letting my seven-months-pregnant daughter chase a mystery alone, did you?”
I almost smiled. “There’s the commanding officer.”
“There’s the father.”
The investigator, a woman named Ruth Alvarez, came to the house two days later. She was in her sixties, with silver hair cut to her jaw and reading glasses on a chain around her neck. She carried a leather folder and spoke like someone who disliked wasting words.
“I found Claire,” she said.
My hands tightened around my mug.
