The screen of the burner phone flickered, loading a single image file.
It was a digital scan of an old Polaroid.
The white border of the original photo was visible in the scan, with a date scrawled in black permanent marker: Paris, 2003.
The subject was a woman standing on a rain-slicked cobblestone street. Damien recognized her instantly from the dossier Ken had compiled on the Vale family. It was Eleanor Vale—Aria's mother. The resemblance was striking. She had the same delicate bone structure, the same soft curve to her jaw, though her hair was darker than Aria's rose-gold.
But she didn't look like the tragic, repressed socialite described in the police reports. She looked radiant.
She was laughing, sheltering under a black umbrella held by a man.
Damien zoomed in on the man.
