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“Keep talking.”

His jaw shifts, but he does. “Jacob and I were estranged for years. I knew he used aliases and made his money dishonestly. Women tended to be poorer after knowing him. I suspected worse things but couldn’t prove them. I kept following traces of him anyway, mostly because our mother never stopped wondering whether he was alive.”

That tracks far too well. “What changed?”

“She died earlier this year. I found a box of correspondence she’d kept from him. One postcard was mailed shortly before he vanished ten years ago.”

My pulse thuds once against my throat. “Chicago?”

“No. Colorado.”

That catches. A small mountain town. A different name. One line in a file I haven’t opened in nine years.

Almost a year after he vanished from his family, Jacob Ricketts surfaced on my radar.

“You went there.”

“Eventually,” he confirms. “Jacob rented a detached cabin there for several months. Most of it had been cleared out years ago, but my brother liked hiding things.”

A cold wave moves through me. “What did you find?”

“A letter. For his daughter. Jubilee.” Everything inside me sinks another inch. “I’d never heard the name,” Joshua continues. “I didn’t know Jacob had married or had a child. The letter was the first indication either existed.”

“What did it say?”

His expression closes. “The letter is for her.”

Good answer. Doesn’t make me trust him. “How did that get you from Colorado to Jubilee York?”

“It gave me enough to search for a daughter named Jubilee. That led me to Anne York, then to Jacob York.” His eyes stay on mine. “My brother finally did what I never expected. Instead of inventing another surname, he took his wife’s.”

The card bends in my fist. Jacob York. The man Jubilee has spent almost a decade searching for. Same disappearance, same timeline. Same fucking man.

I need proof. Not because I doubt what I did, but because I will not put this into Jubilee’s hands unless I’m certain.

“She doesn’t know you. You think she wants to hear this from a stranger in an alley?”

“She’s already heard some of it.” Joshua doesn’t blink. “I spoke with her Friday. At the Renaissance Faire.”

Friday. The privies. Jubilee meeting me halfway with too-bright eyes and a death grip on my hand, chattering about mermaids and twinkle lights. I knew she was off, and a forehead touch and As you wish talked me out of it. Three days of notes on my espresso machine and half-conscious kisses, and not one word.

A sharpness spears me, but it isn’t anger. I don’t have the right. Not with what’s sitting under my shed.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I am her uncle, Jacob may be dead, and I’d like to speak with her when she’s ready.”

“And when she didn’t call, you came here.”

“You announced publicly you’d be here. I thought she might come with you.”

“Why were you watching her at Saint Violet?”

His shoulders shift beneath his coat. “I wasn’t certain she was Jacob’s daughter. Other things at the cabin helped confirm it, but those belong to Jubilee.” His voice lowers. “I’m not trying to hurt her, Gage.”

“Then stop lurking outside her work.”

“I was trying to avoid an audience.” His tone stays maddeningly calm. “Now that I’ve spoken to her, I have no reason to do it again. Unless she contacts me.”