Someone had written a sentence beneath the photograph: Truth always costs more than money. Adrien enlarged the image. Behind James stood a girl of perhaps eight years old with two braids and serious eyes. Ivy.
Less than an hour later, Adrien obtained her address through the staffing agency and drove there himself. He knocked, but no one answered. Instead of leaving, he waited inside his expensive car while neighbors repeatedly glanced through curtains at the stranger who looked completely misplaced on their street.
Near six, Ivy appeared carrying groceries. She saw him and stopped. "Are you lost, Mr. Miller?" "No."
"Then your car certainly is." Adrien got out. "I need to speak with you." Ivy climbed the steps toward her building. "I think you spoke enough at the party." "This isn't about the party."
Adrien followed only as far as the sidewalk. "I received something involving our fathers." She turned. He showed her the photograph. Her expression changed immediately.
"Where did you get that?" "Anonymous email." She took the phone, and her hands began trembling. "My father kept a copy of this."
Adrien studied her face. "I was taught they hated each other." "They did." "You sound certain." Ivy's eyes hardened.
"Your family destroyed my father's life." Adrien did not answer.
She sat on the steps, groceries beside her. "Everyone says he died in an accident, but shortly before it happened, he told me he had finally found the evidence he needed against Miller Global." She looked toward the street. "I spent three years in California studying classical languages. That is why I could read your little test.
After graduate school, I came back here about six months ago. Since then, I have worked wherever I could while searching through everything my father left behind."
"For what?" Adrien asked. "Not money." She returned his phone. "Answers."
Adrien told her about the anonymous call and the man watching his office. Ivy listened cautiously. "Why should I trust you?" "You shouldn't."
The answer surprised her. Adrien continued, "But someone is afraid of both of us asking questions. My company keeps old records at a storage facility south of the city." Ivy stared at him. "You want me to walk into Miller Global with you?"
"Yes." "That sounds insane." "Probably."
"Why would you risk your father's reputation?" Ivy asked. Adrien looked at the photograph again. "I'm not trying to protect his reputation anymore." He raised his eyes.
"I want to know who he really was." After a long silence, Ivy nodded. "Tomorrow morning."
The next morning, Adrien arrived without a driver. Ivy came downstairs wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hooded jacket. She entered his car carrying only her phone and a paper cup of inexpensive coffee. During the drive toward an aging industrial district near Tacoma, neither spoke much.
The archive building stood behind a rusted fence, a gray concrete structure that seemed designed to make people forget it existed. An elderly records clerk named Arthur Bell recognized Adrien immediately. "Mr. Miller, I haven't seen you here since your father was alive." Adrien nodded. "I need files connected to the old North River Chemical Project."
Arthur's face tightened. "Those records were sealed." "By whom?" "Your father." Adrien held his gaze.
"Then I'm unsealing them." Arthur hesitated before leading them through rows of metal shelving.
Before leaving, Arthur said quietly, "Robert once told me some things should remain buried because digging them up can hurt people who were never responsible." Ivy waited until Arthur disappeared. "That sounded like a warning." Adrien stared at the dusty boxes. "Everything sounds like a warning now."
They searched for hours. Technical reports described a minor industrial accident, quickly contained. Water tests were supposedly normal, and environmental damage was listed as negligible. Everything was too perfect. Adrien dropped a folder onto the table. "Someone cleaned the history."
Ivy noticed a crooked metal fastener inside its back cover. Behind it was a thin packet of security records. They examined visitor logs from the period when James Reed had been investigating Miller Global. His signature appeared repeatedly. "He came here," Ivy whispered.
On the final page was a special request granting him access to an independent environmental assessment. Then Ivy froze. The date was eight days after the official date of James Reed's death. Adrien read it twice. "That cannot be right."
Ivy touched the signature. "I know my father's handwriting." Her face had gone pale. "This is his."
Adrien photographed every page. "We should leave." The return journey felt completely different. Until that morning, Ivy had mourned a dead man. Now she faced a possibility almost more painful than grief. Her father might have lived.
Adrien drove directly to his penthouse, where they enlarged the signature on a wall screen. Ivy compared it with old letters stored on her phone. Every angle matched. "If he survived," Adrien said while pacing, "someone altered a police report, a death certificate, and probably identification records."
"The independent environmental assessment," Ivy said. "That is what he requested after he supposedly died." Adrien stopped. "If Miller Global commissioned it, it should appear in our accounting records. And if it doesn't, then someone ordered it privately."
He began searching through names associated with his father during that period. One stood out: Dr. Jacob Sullivan, Robert Miller's longtime physician and personal friend, the same physician who later signed Robert's own death certificate.
They drove to Jacob's modest home on Mercer Island. The retired doctor, now silver-haired and stooped, welcomed Adrien warmly until he heard James Reed's name. His smile disappeared. Inside his study, Adrien showed him the photograph of the archive log. Jacob sat down heavily. "I wondered whether this day would ever come."
Ivy leaned forward. "My father survived the crash." Jacob looked at her for a long moment. "Yes." Her breath caught.
"Where is he?" "I don't know." She stood abruptly. "You expect me to believe that?"