Nash's comment kept haunting Foss's mind. The idea that Happy could be his father. Again and again, he tried to picture his mother's face when his friend suggested it. Had she really looked shocked? Did that mean she'd known all along who his father was? A surge of indignation rose within him, barely containable.

He focused back on the road. It was busy, and the drizzly weather certainly wasn't making the cars move any faster. It had taken them quite a bit of time to gather their things. First, he had to create the impression he was staying at Nash's for a while, which meant stuffing nearly all his belongings into his beat-up car. He'd dumped some of it in Nash's apartment since his luggage also needed to go to Charming. Luckily, it was only a twenty-minute drive.

He tapped the brakes again as a few cars ahead came near a standstill and sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nash glancing at him, scrutinizing.

Again, he thought of his friend's words. Suppose it was true... That suddenly made keeping that guy alive ten times more important. But would his mother really go that far just to stick to her principles? If she even had any. He couldn't entirely dismiss those doubts, either. It was as if cracks had spread across his mother's face, revealing a mask underneath, and he had no idea what lay beneath.

"I want to stop by Vicky's."

"What?" Nash shot upright in his seat. "Why?"

"Just... Call it a gut feeling. Maybe he really is my dad."

"Hmm." Nash stared out the window. "You could just call her, you know. Ask if she can dig up old photos. Did social media even exist twenty-five years ago?"

Foss shrugged. He had no idea. For Nash, that was the cue to pull out his phone. "No, Facebook didn't really get popular until 2005."

"They were twenty by then. Well, maybe it'll still be helpful. Maybe I'll look like him or something."

He could search Facebook himself, but a single call to Vicky would probably save him a lot of time. Since they were barely moving forward, he connected his phone to Bluetooth and scrolled to the number of Nash's ex.

"You're calling her now?" Nash's eyes widened.

"Why not?" He frowned. "You that afraid of hearing her voice?"

"She probably doesn't want to hear mine."

"Then keep quiet." A big task, I know.

Nash sighed deeply.

Was he more affected by the breakup than he let on? Foss had genuinely thought they made a good couple. They fit together. Until Nash suspected his girlfriend had a crush on the drummer in his band, jokingly suggested a polyamorous relationship, and Vicky snapped that she was right to suspect something was going on between Nash and Sam.

And that was the end of their four-month relationship. Nash's record.

The line of cars finally moved again. He steered into the left lane, and soon they passed two cars that had collided. After that, he picked up the pace again.

"I'll call later," he decided.

The tension visibly drained from Nash's shoulders. Foss made a mental note to bring it up again later. He knew Nash wasn't the type to let things go without talking about them. Right now, though, his own mind was already overflowing with everything he'd learned today, and he doubted he could hold a coherent conversation.

Instead, he turned up the volume on At Vance's rendition of "The Winner Takes It All." A faint smile played on his lips as Nash started singing along with such passion it was as if he'd written the song himself. Foss wished he could escape reality that easily. Even now that the band had broken up, his friend still found solace in music.

By the time Foss parked the car on the street where Nash's grandmother lived, he felt drained. It hadn't been a long drive, but the whole situation was just exhausting. With each mile that took him farther from his mother, it seemed stranger that he'd always stayed so calm about her "hobby." It was almost as if a spell had been cast over him, now broken. In his mind, her motivation sounded more and more like an excuse. Like a lie.

Foss grabbed a bag from the car and walked to the front door. It was a small row house. He hadn't been here in about eight years, back when Nash had run away from home. As soon as Nash turned the key and opened the door, a cloud of cigarette smoke greeted them. Oh, right. He'd forgotten the woman smoked like a chimney.

"Nash, my boy, how are you?" Betty shuffled through the hallway and pulled her grandson against her ample bosom.

"Hey, Grandma." Nash kissed her cheek. Then he stepped back.

Foss let the woman hug him, too. The scent of stale sweat overpowered even the smoke, and he did his best to keep a straight face.

"Nice of you to let us stay for a few days, Betty."

"For as long as you like. It gets lonely on my own. I've been talking to the plants, but I think even they're sick of me." She winked. "And if you get bored, the garden could use some work. I can't do much anymore; everything creaks and groans." She turned around with effort and made her way down the hall.

"We'll take care of it," Foss promised.

Before fetching their things, Nash went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Then he joined Foss on the couch, where a light blue crocheted throw lay draped. Between the couch and what looked like a rocking chair stood a side table with an overflowing ashtray. The heavy cigarette use showed in the yellowed wallpaper.

While the coffee was brewed in the tiny kitchen, Nash started chatting with his grandmother. Before long, the conversation turned to little Lucy. Although his friend struggled with his mother's new boyfriend, he adored his little half-sister. He didn't see her much, as he tried to avoid his mother, so he eagerly looked at the photos Betty showed him.

Foss decided it was a good moment to call Vicky. Nash was distracted, anyway. He stepped into the hallway, went outside, and left the door ajar. Then he searched for her name in his contacts and tapped the call icon.

"Hey," she answered hesitantly.

The hesitation wasn't a good sign; they hadn't spoken since she broke up with Nash. Something he actually regretted, as he'd liked her.

"Hey. Uh, am I interrupting?"

"I was just about to start cooking. But you're not calling for small talk, are you?"

He wasn't sure if he was imagining the sharpness in her tone.

"No," he admitted. "I... I was hoping you'd help me." He decided to tell her part of the truth. She seemed like the type who'd be intrigued by family drama. "I think I figured out who my father is. My mother let something slip about an old friend from her youth, though she clammed up right after. Tom Miller. Happy, apparently, is what he goes by now. Some kind of biker." He paused. "I was hoping you could help me find out more about him. Maybe even find photos, so I can see if there's any resemblance. I mean... I can't exactly walk up to him and ask for a DNA test."

"Why not?"

Foss leaned his shoulders against the wall. "I'm not that brave."

Silence fell as she considered it.

"It's only a small favor, right?" he asked cautiously.

She sighed. "It's not like I've got nothing else to do."

"I'd be happy to pay you."

She scoffed, then sighed again. "Fine, because it's you. I'll see what I can find."

"You're amazing." He hesitated for a moment. "Sorry for not reaching out sooner. Nash was—"

"I don't need to hear his name. I'm cooking now. I'll let you know when I find anything."

"Okay, great. Thanks."

She hung up.

Foss stared into the distance, where dark clouds were gathering. Now, it was a waiting game.

Betty had lived in this house since she got married. The two extra bedrooms had belonged to her daughters, and though they hadn't slept there in twenty years, nothing about the rooms had changed. Nash and Foss each had their own room. He sank onto the light purple bedspread, wondering when someone had last slept here. Sleepovers probably weren't common for kids who'd outgrown elementary school. Nash had two cousins on this side, a nephew and a niece, and they were all in their twenties.

He wondered if Betty ever felt lonely, surrounded by all those memories. Would that be his mother's fate, too? She only had him. She'd never even had a partner. Was that all due to her devotion to getting rid of rapists? She sacrificed so much...

His phone buzzed. At first, he thought it was a call, but it was too irregular for that. He pulled the device out of his pocket and saw he had sixteen missed messages from Vicky. Photos. His heart pounded as he clicked through the images, zooming in. She'd added years to each one.

The oldest photos were from three years after he was born. If Happy was as old as his mother, he must have been nineteen therem. He looked older, with broad arms and a shaved head. He wasn't smiling in any of the photos. He usually had a beer in hand. In the later photos, he stood with a group of men, Harleys in the background. Because of his bald head, he was easy to spot.

I ran him through Face++, a tool to check for similarities between you two. It showed an 83% match. I'll attach the report.

Over eighty percent. A sudden thrill pulsed through him. He downloaded the file she sent and scrolled through the document. The shape of the mouth and eyebrows had an average match, but the shape and distance of the eyes, nose structure, jawline, and chin had a very strong match.

"What the hell," Foss muttered. Had Nash really been right when he made that wild guess?

He decided to look up the software himself later to compare himself with some other random men. And with his mother.

Foss closed the file and brought up a photo where Happy had to be about the same age as he was now. He zoomed in, searching for resemblances. It was as if he'd instantly forgotten what his own face looked like.

Eventually, he got up and barged into Nash's room.

"Look." He shoved the photo under Nash's nose.

His friend whistled. "Pretty good-looking guy."

Foss shot him a dark look and gestured back and forth between himself and the photo. "Do you see any similarities?"

It was as if a lightbulb went on in Nash's eyes. "Oh! Is that the mysterious childhood friend slash target of your mother?"

"Don't forget potential father," Foss grumbled.

Nash took the phone from his hands, held it up next to his head, and looked critically back and forth. "Well... it's hard to imagine you bald, but those eyes, that nose... and not to mention that very charming smile... Yeah, it seems plausible?"

"An 83% match according to some software Vicky used."

"Oh, shit." Nash's eyes widened. "So the similarities aren't just a figment of my overactive imagination."

"It doesn't have to mean anything. I want to try it with other people."

Nash grabbed his laptop, and they looked up the website, created an account, and ran a few free comparisons. The highest score was 34%, which was far off from the other percentage.

Stunned, Foss stared at the screen after the sixth mismatch.

He no longer believed it was just a coincidence that he resembled that Happy guy so much.

"Fuck." He rubbed his face. "What now?"

Nash shrugged. "No idea, man. But we definitely need to put more effort into making sure your mom doesn't kill this guy. And get to know him, of course. I mean, maybe he's a total jerk, and you got all your good genes from your mom."

His mom, who was a serial killer. Who was willing to kill his biological father. Who might have known all along who his father was and had lied to him for years.

He quickly shook off that thought. No, it didn't have to be that way. It could still be that she'd been with lots of guys, that she really didn't know which of her ten flings was the father of her child.

"Suppose she doesn't know he's my dad," he mused. "Should I send this to her? Maybe it'll stop her from going through with it."

"She'd probably just snap at us to mind our own business."

Foss shrugged. "Maybe it'll still make her think."

"I doubt it. She already knows you've considered the possibility. She believes he's a rapist. If we want him to stay alive, we need to prove that he's not. Find out where that accusation came from and show her that it can't be true."

"Maybe it is true. A rapist as a father and a murderer as a mother." He scoffed. "Damn, I must be pretty messed up."

"But you're not." Nash wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close. "That's reason enough for me to give this guy a chance. If he's innocent, we'll prove it."

Foss stifled a sigh. He had no idea how to prove something like that. It's not as if they could read the man's memories.

But knowing his best friend, he'd eventually come up with an idea that was both ridiculous and brilliant.