“What is your mama’s name?” he asked gently.

“Mary Grace,” I said.

The man stopped moving.

His hands remained suspended in the air between us.

The gray sky seemed to reflect in his wide, dark eyes.

“Mary Grace?” he whispered, his voice cracking.

“Mary Grace Fitzgerald,” I added, because she always told me to use our full names if I ever got lost.

He stared at me as if I had just spoken a language he had forgotten years ago.

He reached out, his fingers hovering near my cheek, but he stopped himself.

“And who are you?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“I’m Lauren,” I said.

A gust of wind blew my hood back, revealing my curly dark hair.

He gasped, a sharp intake of air that sounded like real pain.

He looked at my eyes, then my nose, then my hands.

“Lauren,” he said again.

It sounded like a prayer.

“Do you know my mama?” I asked.

“I did,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “A long time ago.”

He stood up quickly, his breathing shallow in the freezing air.

He pulled a sleek black phone from his inner pocket.

His fingers tapped the screen with a sudden, desperate urgency.

“Paul,” he said into the phone, not waiting for a greeting.

“Ethan? Where are you? The board is waiting.”

The voice from the speaker was sharp and clear in the cold quiet.

“Cancel the meeting,” Ethan said.

“What? Ethan, this is the acquisition. We’ve spent six months on this.”

“I don’t care about the acquisition, Paul,” Ethan said, his eyes locked on mine.

“I need you to find out everything you can about Mary Grace Fitzgerald.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Mary Grace?” Paul asked, his voice dropping. “Ethan, she’s been gone for six years.”

“She’s here,” Ethan said. “Her daughter is sitting in front of me.”