Chapter 3

At two in the afternoon, the ride arrived.

An old farm tractor groaned its way up the Perez driveway — engine rumbling, exhaust pipe coughing thin black smoke, rust-spotted body shuddering with every yard it covered. It came to a stop in front of the villa, looking like it had taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on the wrong continent.

Abigail pressed her lips together to keep from laughing out loud.

The man who climbed down from the driver's seat wore faded work clothes with mud caked on the knees. His skin was darkened and lined from years in the sun. His hands, when he extended one toward Vaughn, were rough with calluses.

"Mr. Perez? Hello, sir. My name is Ryan Martin. I'm the butler for the Adams family. Mr. and Mrs. Adams sent me to bring Ms. Adams home."

"Butler," Abigail murmured to Hazel, amused. "Sure."

Ryan smiled — a little awkward — and reached back into the tractor to lift down a large, heavy burlap sack.

"Mr. and Mrs. Adams grew these themselves. Soybeans, just harvested this season. They wanted me to bring them as a thank-you — for taking care of their daughter all these years. Nothing fancy, but they mean it sincerely."

Hazel looked at the sack. The distaste on her face was barely contained. "Thank you, but no. Please take it back."

Vaughn gave a short, polite nod. No move to accept.

Ryan stood there with the sack still in his hands, visibly uncertain what to do.

What he didn't say — what no one in the Perez family knew — was that the soybeans were cover.

Beneath them, tucked carefully at the bottom: the deed to a mansion. The keys to a luxury car. A share-transfer agreement worth more than anything in this driveway had ever been worth. The Adams family had worried that presenting those things directly would seem too showy. So they'd wrapped them in something humble and sent them along quietly.

The Perez family didn't even look inside.

Hazel touched Elowen's arm and lowered her voice. "You see this? They send soybeans. Are you really sure about this? If you want to stay, we can still work something out."

Elowen walked to the sack, crouched down, and reached inside. She brought up a small handful of soybeans and held them in her open palm. They were golden and heavy, each one round and full, catching the afternoon light.

"I love these," she said simply.

She let them fall back into the sack and looked up at Ryan.

"Since they don't want them — bring them home. You can make me soy milk."

Hazel's expression closed over.

Ryan's face broke into a wide, genuine grin.

Elowen got to her feet and wheeled her suitcase toward the tractor.

"Ryan — do they grow anything besides soybeans?"

He lifted her suitcase for her, still smiling. "All kinds of things, Ms. Adams. The property runs about 200,000 acres. Whatever you feel like eating, we'll have it."

Abigail couldn't help herself. "200,000 acres." She laughed. "That's bigger than the whole city."

Hazel shook her head quietly. Poor, and apparently a liar too.

Elowen said nothing. She climbed up onto the tractor, settled in, and raised one hand in a short wave to the three figures at the villa entrance. No particular expression on her face. No hesitation. Just a small, clean goodbye.

The engine turned over. The tractor began to roll — down the driveway, through the gate, out onto the road, carrying Elowen away from the Perez family and the eighteen years she had spent inside those walls.

Hazel watched until the tractor was out of sight.

"She's so stubborn," she said quietly.

Vaughn didn't answer. He went inside.

Abigail wound her arm through Hazel's. "Don't worry about it, Mom. She acted on impulse. Once things get hard out there, she'll come back on her own."

Hazel nodded slowly. "You're probably right. A family like that — she won't last long."

Abigail looked out at the empty road, and something warm and certain settled into her expression.

By the time Elowen came back, there wouldn't be a place left for her here.

Two hours later, the tractor left the city behind, rolled through wide stretches of open countryside, and turned onto a broad, quiet avenue lined on both sides with old trees. The afternoon light came through the branches in long, clean angles and lay across the road in gold.

Elowen had been expecting a run-down farm. Something small and weathered. Maybe a garden that had seen better years.

What appeared around the final bend stopped her cold.

White marble walls, gleaming. Blue spires rising sharply against the sky. A grand fountain plaza at the entrance, the water catching the light and scattering it in every direction. Gardens stretching out on either side, perfectly kept, going on farther than she could see.

It looked like something from a different century. An estate, not a farm. A castle, not a countryside house.

Parked along the side drive: a line of black cars, each one sleek and custom and worth more than most people would see in a lifetime.

This was where she came from?

The disabled mother. The addict father. The brother who had barely gotten out of prison. That was what Vaughn had told her.

None of it matched a single thing in front of her eyes.

The tractor came to a stop before the fountain. Ryan hopped down.

"We're home, Ms. Adams. Mrs. Adams has been waiting since this morning. She barely touched her lunch."

Elowen stepped onto the stone path. The marble was smooth and cool beneath her shoes. The fountain sent a fine mist into the air. Around her, everything was quiet and immaculate and utterly unlike anything she had been prepared for.

She stood very still.

Someone had lied to her. Vaughn had told her exactly what kind of family she was going home to — and not one word of it was standing in front of her now.

What else had they kept from her? What else had she never been allowed to know?

Before she could finish the thought, a voice broke through the sound of the fountain — coming from somewhere deep inside the estate, high and trembling and full of something that sounded like it had been held in for a very long time.

"Elowen is home —"

She stood there on the stone path and didn't move.

In her last life, she had never once questioned what she'd been told.

This time, she was going to find out the truth.