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Part 1: The Stop That Changed Everything
And there, just below her left ear, barely visible unless you knew where to look, was the small crescent-moon birthmark.
Thirty-one years.
He had searched for that mark for thirty-one years.
She glanced at the paperwork again. “Robert McAllister,” she read aloud. “Is this your current address?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said automatically. Most people didn’t call him by his full name anymore. To the people he rode with over the years, he was just Ghost. A nickname earned from coming and going without explanation, from never staying long enough to build roots.
She didn’t react to the name. Of course she didn’t. If her mother had changed their identities, if she had been raised under a different name, why would she?
Still, Robert noticed the way she stood. The way she shifted her weight slightly onto her back foot. The way she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she focused. He had seen those gestures before, in a tiny girl who used to sit cross-legged on the floor with crayons spread out around her.
