Chapter 3 - The Missing Page.
Connor showed Faith the message in the clinic parking lot.
She read it twice before handing the phone back.
"She wants you to doubt me."
"I don't."
"You will if she finds the right lie."
Connor opened the passenger door for her, but Faith remained still.
She had spent years learning that wealthy families rarely raised their voices when paperwork could do the damage quietly.
"Go tomorrow," she said.
"Faith—"
"Go, listen, and do not tell her what you believe."
The next morning, Connor returned to the Hale house alone.
Evelyn waited in the same green dress, as though the previous day had never ended.
She placed the missing page on the kitchen island.
It was a copy of Noah's birth certificate.
The space for the father's name was blank.
"That proves nothing," Connor said.
"It proves she is hiding someone."
Evelyn then produced a photograph of Faith speaking with a dark-haired man outside a bank.
"My investigator believes that man is Noah's father."
Connor recognized him as Daniel Reed, a compliance officer at Hale Development.
Daniel had recently accused a senior executive of manipulating vendor payments.
"When was this taken?"
"Last Tuesday."
Connor remembered Faith telling him she had a dental appointment that afternoon.
For one painful second, uncertainty entered the room.
Evelyn noticed.
"Ask yourself why she is meeting one of your employees in secret."
Connor folded the photograph and slipped it into his pocket.
"I will ask her."
Faith answered before he finished the question.
Daniel had contacted her because her late mother had once kept records for a catering company used by Hale Development.
The company appeared on invoices long after it had closed.
"He thought I might have her old files," Faith explained.
"Do you?"
Faith opened a storage box in her apartment and removed a faded ledger.
Several pages carried Evelyn's signature.
Connor studied the dates.
The payments began six years earlier, shortly after his father died, and continued until the previous month.
"My mother knew about this report," he said.
Faith looked at the photograph again.
"Then the background check was never only about me."
Connor called Daniel.
The call went directly to voicemail.
Minutes later, Daniel sent a single text.
DO NOT BRING THE LEDGER TO THE OFFICE.
THEY KNOW FAITH HAS IT.
Before Connor could respond, someone knocked at Faith's apartment door.
A man's voice called from the hallway.
"Building maintenance. We need to inspect a leak."
Faith looked toward the kitchen ceiling.
It was perfectly dry.
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THE NECKLACE AT THE SINK
