The room smelled of old dust and commercial disinfectant.

“How did she find us?” I whispered, staring at the floor.

“She has people,” Nathan said.

He closed the blinds, shutting out the rainy night.

“Private investigators, off-duty cops, whoever she can buy.”

He walked over to the small round table and sat down in the plastic chair opposite me.

The single overhead light cast deep shadows under his cheekbones.

He looked tired, older than his thirty-eight years.

“You were telling me about your mother,” I said softly.

The room was quiet except for the steady thrum of the rain against the metal roof.

Nathan looked down at his hands, his fingers interlaced.

“My mother was twenty-two when she had me,” he said.

“She worked two jobs, clerking at a dry cleaner and cleaning offices at night.”

“My father’s family, the Colingwoods, were old money in Virginia.”

“They didn’t want her, but they wanted me.”

He tightened his grip on his own fingers until his knuckles turned white.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because my father died in a boating accident before I was born,” Nathan said.