The apartment was smaller than Ivy expected, sparse, temporary, the kind of place a man rented when he needed somewhere to disappear rather than somewhere to actually live, and in the center of the otherwise empty living room sat a single sealed envelope propped against a folding chair, Sterling's name written across the front in handwriting Ivy recognized instantly from the notebook that had started all of this.

Sterling stared at it for a long moment before he picked it up, hands steady despite everything Ivy knew was churning underneath the surface.

Inside was a single page, and a small, worn photograph that fluttered loose when he unfolded the letter,...