Trap

Damien stayed in London for four more days.

He moved out of the hotel and into the guest room of Aria's house at her invitation. He did not push for the master bedroom. He did not push for anything. He read books in the sitting room. He took Luna to the playground twice. He cooked dinner once. He stood in the kitchen and washed the dishes after, and Seraphina watched him from the doorway and tried not to memorize what he looked like in shirtsleeves with his forearms wet.

On the fourth day, his phone rang at six in the morning.

Nathan.

"Damien. I have a name."

Damien sat up.

"Tell me."

"The woman in the Target footage. The prepaid card. The VPN. We pulled her from a different angle in the parking lot and ran face match against the European biometric database. Her name is Rose Taylor. American national. New York birth. Adopted at six months. Four arrests for assault, none convicted. Three psychiatric holds, all voluntary. She has been off the radar for the last eighteen months. She entered the United Kingdom on a tourist visa eleven days ago."

"Where is she now."

"The Doric Hotel. Islington. She has not checked out."

"Get me the room number."

"Damien."

"Get me the room number."

"You cannot go alone. You cannot confront her without telling Aria first. She will never forgive you if you handle this without her."

Damien closed his eyes.

"You are right."

"Wake her up. Tell her. Then call me back."

He hung up.

He stood in the guest room for a long moment with the phone in his hand. He did not want to wake her. He had spent four days letting her have peace. He did not want to be the person who shattered it.

He woke her anyway.

He sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on her shoulder, and she opened her eyes immediately the way mothers of small children open their eyes, all at once and ready.

"Damien."

"Nathan found her. Rose Taylor. The Doric Hotel in Islington. We have her location and her name. I wanted you to know before I did anything."

Aria sat up. The duvet fell to her waist. Her eyes focused.

"Get Catalina."

"What."

"We do this with all three of us. She knows Rose. We are not going to ambush my sister with two strangers. We are going to bring our mother."

"Yes."

He called Catalina. She arrived at the house in twenty minutes.

By eight in the morning, the three of them were in the sitting room. Coffee. Two laptops. A printed photograph of Rose. A map of Islington on the wall above the fireplace.

"We do not corner her at the hotel," Catalina said. "She will run. She has run before. We need her to come to us."

"How."

Catalina looked at Aria.

"You write to her."

"What."

"You write her a letter. As her sister. You tell her you know who she is, and that you would like to meet her, and you give her a place and a time. Public. Neutral. Witnesses. She is angry, but she is not stupid. If you offer her what she actually wants, which is acknowledgment, she will come."

"What if she comes to hurt me."

"We will have security. She will not be able to."

"What if she does not come."

"Then we go to the hotel. But I think she will come. I think she has been waiting her whole life to be asked."

Aria sat very still.

Damien spoke quietly.

"It is your call, Aria."

She thought.

She thought about Rose smoking under her yew tree at three in the morning. She thought about Rose's face in the photograph from the Target parking lot. She thought about a baby in a hospital ward with a wristband identical to hers, who had been carried in the opposite direction down a hallway and had spent thirty one years finding her way back.

"I will write the letter."

"Aria."

"I will write it. We meet at the cafe in Hyde Park. Public. Crowded. Saturday morning at ten. I will sit with her for one hour and I will hear her out. After that, we decide what to do."

Damien nodded.

"I will be at the next table."

"You will be at the next table. Catalina, you will be in the cafe. I want her to see you. I want her to know that we are all in the same room together for the first time."

"Yes."

Aria stood up. Walked to the window.

"We have three days to prepare. Damien, get me everything Nathan can find on her. Catalina, write down every conversation you have ever had with her, word for word. I want to know what to expect."

"Yes."

"And one more thing."

"What."

Aria turned around. Her face was pale.

"If she comes to that meeting with someone else. If she has a partner I do not know about. If there is anyone with her who does not belong. We abort. Immediately. I do not care what we have to do. We get Luna out of London by lunchtime."

Damien looked at her.

"You think she has someone."

"I think Vanessa is not as broken as we thought."

The room went very quiet.

"Damien. Find out where Vanessa is right now."

He picked up his phone.

Outside, the rain had started again.

Nathan answered on the first ring. Damien spoke quickly, listened, and ended the call.

"Vanessa is not in her apartment. Her cards are dead. She took a Lyft to JFK yesterday. Nathan is checking flight manifests now."

Catalina set her cup down very carefully.

"She is coming here."

"It is the most likely option."

Aria pressed her hand against her stomach.

"Then we move the meeting up. Friday, not Saturday."

"Are you sure."

"I am sure."

Damien crossed the room. Sat next to her on the couch.

She let her shoulder rest against his and closed her eyes for a long count.

Then she stood up.

"I will write the letter now. Catalina, will you read it before I send it."

"I will stay."

Aria walked to her writing desk. Took out stationery and her good pen.

She wrote three drafts. None were right. On the fourth, she wrote eight lines and stopped.

She handed the page to Catalina.

"Yes. That will bring her."

Aria sealed the letter. Her security detail delivered it by hand.

She watched the courier disappear down the street.

It was done.