At that moment, all Colton knew was that Darren recognized the tattoo.
And he did not want the little girl talking about it.
“Lila,” Colton said gently, keeping his eyes on the man, “what is your mother's name?”
Darren's voice sharpened.
“Don't answer him.”
The girl looked at Colton.
Her lower lip trembled.
Then she whispered a name that Colton had spent nine years trying not to imagine hearing from anyone who could not prove it.
“Mara.”
The sound seemed to pass straight through his chest.
He gripped the edge of the table.
“What?”
“Mommy's name is Mara.”
Colton stared at her.
“What's her last name?”
Darren stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
Colton turned toward him.
“No. It isn't.”
Lila swallowed.
“Mara Grant.”
Grant.
Not Hayes.
Colton felt a strange, sickening mixture of relief and terror.
His sister had changed her name.
She had a child.
She was alive—or at least this little girl believed she was.
And this man standing in front of him seemed to know far more than he was willing to admit.
“Where is she?” Colton demanded.
Darren's face hardened.
“You need to walk away.”
Colton laughed once.
It was not a pleasant sound.
“For nine years, I've been walking toward her. I'm not turning around because a stranger tells me to.”
Darren looked at him more carefully.
Something shifted in his expression.
Recognition.
“You're Colton Hayes.”
The words confirmed what Colton had begun to suspect.
Darren knew who he was.
He had known before the little girl mentioned the tattoo.
Perhaps he had recognized the design himself.
Perhaps the encounter was not accidental.
“Who told you my name?” Colton asked.
Darren glanced toward the windows.
A dark gray sedan had just entered the parking lot.
It moved slowly past the row of trucks before stopping near the far end of the building.
Two men climbed out.
Neither looked at the diner entrance.
They looked at the windows.
Darren went pale.
“Damn it.”
He grabbed Lila's backpack from the booth.
“We're leaving.”
Colton stepped into his path.
“Not until you tell me where my sister is.”
Darren stared at him.
“You don't understand what is happening.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can't.”
“Try.”
Darren looked toward the windows again.
One of the men outside had lifted a phone to his ear.
The other was watching the diner.
Darren's voice dropped.
“Your sister told me that if I ever met you, I was supposed to give you something.”
He reached inside his jacket.
Colton's muscles tightened.
But Darren withdrew only a folded photograph.
He placed it on the table between them.
Colton looked down.
The picture showed a woman standing beside a small white house beneath a cottonwood tree. She wore jeans and a faded blue shirt. Her brown hair was shorter than he remembered, and there were fine lines around her eyes that had not existed nine years earlier.
But he knew the shape of her face.
He knew the slight tilt of her head.
He knew the scar above her left eyebrow.
Mara.
Alive.
His sister was alive.
Colton picked up the photograph with both hands.
For several seconds, he could not make himself look away.
The image was recent. The sunlight was bright, and the woman was smiling at someone just outside the frame. Her left hand rested on the porch railing.
The tattoo was visible on her wrist.
Three curved lines.
One eight-pointed star.
Colton pressed his thumb against the edge of the photograph.
He had imagined this moment a thousand times.
He had imagined what he would say, how he would react, whether he would be angry or relieved, whether he would fall apart or simply stand there staring at her.
He had prepared himself for every possibility except the truth.
That he might be so overwhelmed by seeing her alive that he would forget how to speak.
“Where was this taken?” he finally asked.
“Three weeks ago,” Darren answered.
“Where?”
“Near Prescott.”
“Take me there.”
“I can't.”
Colton looked up.
“Why not?”
“Because she's not there anymore.”
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
Colton stared at him in disbelief.
“You've got a picture of my sister from three weeks ago, you know my name, and you expect me to believe you don't know where she is?”
“I know where she was. That's different.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
Darren leaned closer.
“Not here.”
A sharp knock sounded against the diner window.
One of the men outside stood on the other side of the glass.
He smiled at Darren.
It was a small, friendly smile.
The kind of smile a man might offer an old acquaintance in a grocery store.
Darren reacted as though he had seen a gun pointed at his head.
“Kitchen,” he said.
Colton did not move.
“Tell me who they are.”
“The reason your sister disappeared.”
That was enough.
Colton reached for his keys.