My triplets refused to blow out their birthday candles until I set a fourth place at the table.

Oakridge was another world entirely.

An hour north of our cramped subdivision, the cracked asphalt gave way to winding, two-lane roads flanked by ancient weeping willows and five-rail black paddock fences. Thoroughbred horses grazed across emerald pastures that seemed to stretch into the foothills.

Adam drove twenty miles below the speed limit, his eyes darting between the GPS screen and the rearview mirror.

"Turn right here," I said, checking my phone. "Stonewall Lane."

The road narrowed, shaded by a canopy of towering red oaks. At the end of the cul-de-sac stood two twenty-foot wrought-iron gates set into limestone pillars. A bronze plaque mounted on the stone read simply: *Highland Manor*.

Beyond the gates, a winding driveway vanished into a dense forest of manicured pines. A security camera with an infrared sensor swiveled smoothly atop the left pillar, tracking our truck as we slowed to a crawl fifty yards away.

"We can't get in," Adam said, pulling onto the gravel shoulder beneath the trees. "There's an eight-foot stone wall running the entire perimeter."

"Look at the public calendar," I said, showing him my phone screen. I had been scouring local social pages and the Oakridge Community League website for the entire hour-long drive. "The Oakridge Country Day School. It’s four miles from here. Victor Sterling is the primary trustee. And today is Friday."

Adam glanced at the dashboard clock. "It's 2:15 PM."

"Dismissal is at 2:45."

Ten minutes later, we pulled into the visitors' lot across from Oakridge Country Day School. The campus looked like an Ivy League college: brick buildings draped in ivy, manicured sports fields, and a circular drop-off lane lined with late-model Land Rovers and Mercedes SUVs.

We sat in the truck, the engine idling quietly behind a row of tall boxwood hedges.

At 2:45 PM, a brass bell chimed across the campus. The heavy oak doors of the lower school swung open, and dozens of children poured out into the warm afternoon air. They were dressed in uniform: navy-blue blazers, plaid pleated skirts for the girls, khaki shorts for the boys.

My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears.

"Adam," I whispered, pointing through the windshield.

A tall, blonde woman in oversized designer sunglasses and an ivory trench coat walked out onto the stone terrace. She moved with a brittle, nervous grace, clutching a leather handbag against her ribs.

Claire Sterling.

And walking beside her, holding her manicured hand, was a little girl.

She wore the navy blazer and plaid skirt. Her dark brown hair fell in thick, loose curls past her shoulders—the exact shade, texture, and wave of Nora’s hair. She had Caleb’s slight, stubborn tilt of the chin.

And when the girl turned sideways to laugh at something another child said, the afternoon sun illuminated her profile.

I let out a ragged, choking gasp that sounded like a wounded animal.

She had my eyes. Hazel-green, almond-shaped, with a tiny, distinctive dark freckle just beneath the lower lash of her left eyelid.

The exact same mark Tess had under hers.

"It's her," Adam choked out, his fingers digging into the dashboard until his knuckles turned purple. "Oh my God, Rachel. It’s her."

The girl wasn't dead. She wasn't an angel in the clouds.

She was seven years old, wearing an expensive private-school uniform, carrying a monogrammed pink backpack that read *Maya Sterling*.