The message from Lena, if it was really her, had given them an address. A small cafe on the edge of the financial district, two streets from the Voss family's main offices, the kind of place where no one important would think to look because it was beneath them.
Peter's security team had spent the morning verifying what they could. The cafe was real, unremarkable, the kind of place with mismatched chairs and a menu written on a chalkboard, frequented mostly by junior staff from the surrounding offices on their lunch breaks. Nothing about it suggested anything other than what it appeared to be, which Peter said was either reassuring or exactly the point.
Peter had wanted to go himself. Caro had argued, calmly, that a man like Peter Shey walking into that cafe would be noticed within minutes, and whoever was watching Lena, if she was being watched at all, would know exactly what it meant.
"I can go in as myself," Caro had said. "Newly married, curious, doing something unremarkable like meeting a contact for a charity board Peter's company sponsors. No one will think twice."
It had taken him most of the morning to agree. And now Caro sat in the cafe, a folder of genuine charity paperwork open in front of her as cover, watching the door.
Isabella walked in twenty minutes later.
Caro's stomach dropped, but she did not look up immediately. She had learned, over the past weeks, that the first reaction was always the one people remembered. She kept her eyes on the folder in front of her, turning a page slowly, deliberately, as though absorbed in something far more interesting than the door.
"Caro," Isabella said warmly, sliding into the seat across from her as though they were old friends. "What a coincidence. I didn't know you were on the Hawthorne Foundation board."
"I'm not," Caro said evenly. "I'm reviewing it. Peter asked me to look at where the company's contributions are going." She kept her tone light, unbothered. "Small world, though. What brings you here?"
"Oh, this and that." Isabella's eyes moved briefly to the folder, then to the pendant at Caro's throat, and something flickered behind her expression, gone almost as quickly as it appeared. "That's a beautiful piece. Vintage, isn't it?"
"A gift," Caro said simply.
"From Peter?" Isabella's smile sharpened slightly. "How sentimental of him. He's not usually one for sentiment."
Caro said nothing, letting the silence sit. It was a tactic Peter had taught her without meaning to, simply by being someone who never filled silences he didn't need to.
Isabella, however, did not let it sit for long.
"You know," she said, leaning in slightly, "I couldn't help noticing the timing of your little charity review. Today, specifically. In this particular cafe." Her eyes glittered. "Almost as though you were expecting to meet someone."
Caro's pulse spiked, but her face did not change. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"No, I don't suppose you would be." Isabella stood, smoothing her skirt. "Enjoy your paperwork, Caro. Give Peter my regards." She paused at the edge of the table, her voice dropping just slightly. "And do be careful which old friends you decide to meet in public. Some reunions don't go the way people hope."
She left.
Caro sat very still for a long moment, her mind racing. Isabella had known. Not guessed, known, with the specific certainty of someone who had read the same message Caro had received that morning.
Which meant Lena's number had not been secure. Which meant whoever Lena was trying to reach out from under, the Voss family already knew she had made contact.
Caro's phone buzzed.
She's not coming. They intercepted the message after it was sent. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried this way. Don't come back here. They'll be watching now.
Caro's chest tightened with a cold, sinking dread. She had been so careful. She had followed every precaution Peter's team had laid out. And still, somehow, Isabella had known exactly where to be, exactly when.
She gathered her things quickly and left, her mind already running through everything that had happened that morning, trying to find the gap.
By the time she reached the car, Peter was already there, his expression unreadable as she climbed in. The driver pulled away from the curb before she had even closed the door, the city sliding past the windows in a blur of glass and gray morning light.
"She didn't come," Caro said immediately, before he could ask. "Isabella showed up instead. She knew Peter. She knew exactly where I'd be and why."
"I know," Peter said quietly. "I just got off the phone with security."
Caro's stomach dropped further. "What did they find?"
"The leak wasn't on our end," Peter said. "And it wasn't you." He turned to face her fully, and there was something steady in his expression that told her whatever was coming next, he had already worked through the worst of his own anger about it. "The message from Lena was sent through a relay account. One that was created two days ago, using credentials that trace back to Isabella's old building access codes."
Caro's breath caught. "She set it up. The whole thing. The message, the address, all of it."
"Not Lena's voice," Peter said. "I think that part may have been real, an actual attempt at contact. But Isabella intercepted it before it reached us, and used it as bait. She wanted you in that cafe, today, wearing that pendant, so she could confirm exactly what we'd uncovered, and exactly how far we were willing to go to find out more."
"And I walked right into it," Caro said, the words tasting bitter.
"You walked into it because the message looked real enough that not going would have meant abandoning the one lead we've had on Lena in eleven years," Peter said firmly. "That's not a mistake, Caro. That's exactly the choice I would have made."
"But now Isabella knows we're looking for Lena. She knows about the pendant. She knows we're close enough to something that they had to act today, immediately, rather than wait." Caro looked at him. "Doesn't that make things worse?"
"It makes things clearer," Peter said. "Isabella showing up in person, today, of all days, means one thing. Whatever the Voss family is protecting, they're protecting it badly enough that they couldn't risk waiting to see what you'd find. They had to know, immediately, whether we'd made contact with Lena." His jaw tightened. "Which means Lena is still alive. And she's close enough that the Voss family is genuinely afraid of what happens if she reaches us."
Caro absorbed that, something steadying despite the morning's failure. "So we didn't lose today. We just confirmed how scared they are."
"Exactly." Peter's hand found hers, and for once, neither of them pulled away. "Isabella thinks she won something today. She thinks she's shown us how outmatched we are." His voice hardened. "She has no idea that everything she just confirmed is going to be the reason we find Lena before they can stop us."
Caro looked down at the pendant, then back at Peter. "Then we need a better way to reach her. One Isabella can't intercept."
"I might know one," Peter said slowly. "But it means going somewhere I haven't been in eleven years."
"Where?"
Peter's expression darkened, old grief and new resolve sitting side by side behind his eyes.
"Home," he said quietly. "My father's estate. The last place anyone in this family saw Lena before she disappeared."