“What’s up?” She could tell he had news. He was so easy to read.

“Anita asked me to give you this. It just came via messenger.” He handed over the white cardboard document envelope.

Victoria glanced at the front, verifying it was for her. Weird. No return address.

She ripped open the envelope and shook the single sheet of paper onto her desk. Seth leaned against her doorjamb, his arms crossed, casually watching. She flipped over the paper. It had two sentences.

Your mother’s name is Isabel Favero.

The second line was an address in Portland.

Victoria’s vision tunneled on the paper, reading the name over and over. Seth spoke as if from a great distance. She couldn’t move.

My mother?

Is this a joke?

Isabel Favero.

“Tori!” His tone grabbed her attention. “What is that?” He moved behind her and read, his hands heavy on her shoulders.

“What the hell?”

Her thoughts exactly.

“I thought someone had died, by the look on your face. Can I see that?”

She nodded, and Seth tugged the paper from her frozen fingers.

My mother?

Seth glanced at the back of the paper. Blank. “I don’t think this is how Michael would deliver any information he found, right?”

Victoria shook her head. “No. He’d call.”

Seth picked up the messenger envelope. “I’ll call them and find out who had this delivered.” Frowning, he pulled out his cell and started tapping, searching for the messenger service number. “I don’t like this. Who would send you something like this?”

“I don’t know.” Victoria shook her head. Her spinning brain made her stomach queasy. She leaned forward on her desk. Why now? Why send this within a day of her wondering about her birth mother? She listened as Seth spoke on the phone. He wasn’t getting an answer he liked.

“A walk-in,” he told her as he ended his call. “He paid cash. Now they’re noticing the form he filled out has a bunch of bogus information.”

“He?” Victoria asked.

Seth nodded. “They couldn’t tell me much about how he looks. Hat, jacket, jeans, and wet. Just like everyone else in Portland today. And they don’t have cameras.” Seth ran his finger down the edge of the paper. “Chances are this is a hoax.”

“I know. So it should be easy to disprove.”

“Let’s call that reporter friend of yours. See what he can dig up on this name and address first.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“I’ll call. And then we might go for a drive.”

Victoria agreed.

It seemed like forever before Michael got his information back to Seth. Victoria sat in her desk chair, unable to keep her feet or hands still. She tapped pencils and pens. She crossed and uncrossed her legs as Seth talked to Michael on the phone. She’d left the matter in his hands. Ever since the note, her mind had been unable to form a coherent thought. Two mantras blasted a path through her brain.

Is this my mother?

Who is doing this and why?

Seth was doing a lot of “Uh-huh” and “Hmmm” on the phone, scribbling notes on a pad with his cell tucked between his shoulder and ear. Every now and then he’d meet her gaze, his fiercely serious as he listened to Michael.

He hung up and Victoria held her breath.

Seth looked at his pad. “There really is an Isabel Favero and this is the address listed for her. She doesn’t own the home; she rents. She is fifty-five, single, and currently unemployed.”

He looked at Victoria and frowned. “Breathe,” he ordered.

She inhaled and pressed her lips together. So far, nothing had ruled it a prank.

“She’s been married three times and has four children. None appear to live with her.”

Possibly five.

Do I have siblings?

“She has a past address in Seaport.”

Victoria straightened in her chair. Where I was adopted.

“The address is the same as the church where your parents attended. The church burned down twenty-five years ago.”

Victoria nodded. She’d remembered that. Her parents had been upset that their previous church had burned, and a very young Victoria had questioned what had happened to the grandpa-like pastor. Her parents had assured her no one was hurt. But she’d always wondered if the kind old man had rebuilt his church somewhere else. “Wait. She lived at the church? I don’t understand.”

“Could be a number of things. Maybe she worked there and got her mail there. Maybe she just needed some sort of mailing address. It was pretty rural out there at the time. I doubt she actually lived in the building.”

Nerves bubbled up inside of her. They weren’t excitement nerves or dread nerves. Simply sheer stimulation. This day had taken an odd turn of events. “I haven’t heard anything to rule her out.”

Seth nodded. “I agree.” He paused and stared at his pad.

“What? What else did you find out?”

Seth licked his lips. “Brody pulled up her driver’s license photo.”

“And?”

“He says there could be a resemblance. Black hair, brown eyes.”

Victoria swallowed hard. “Oh my God. This might be real,” she whispered.

Seth squatted in front of her chair, his hands on her thighs, his eyes earnest. “Listen. No hopes up, okay? Someone could have engineered this. I don’t know why, but don’t rule it out, okay?”