Page 31
“Yeah.”
“From the fire four years ago?”
His eyes return to mine.
“You've done a lot of research for a matchmaking job.”
“Your name was in several articles.”
“That it was.”
“Were they accurate?”
He takes his time answering.
“Some parts.”
“Which parts?”
“The fire happened. Somebody died. I got hurt.”
A chill moves through me.
The man from the obituary.
The same olive-green eyes I see every morning in the mirror. The familiar shape of his mouth, his cheekbones.
I have no proof we're related, but every time I look at that photograph, I become more certain.
He was my father.
I swallow.
“And the rest?”
“The reports said I couldn't accept the official findings.”
“Could you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I believed that fire was deliberately set.”
My fingers tighten around my glass.
“You thought it was arson?”
“I still do.”
His answer comes without hesitation.
I study him carefully.
Is that conviction?
Or the practiced certainty of someone repeating the same story for four years?
