Vance left with a promise to call his attorney.

I could hear his expensive shoes striking the hallway floor, each step louder than necessary.

Afterward, Warren sat back down and stared at the wall.

“I owe you an explanation about those letters.”

“Then give me one.”

He explained that his attorney, Camille Hart, had sent a confidential notice by certified mail to my home five weeks earlier.

It requested a private conversation about my mother’s estate and his possible biological relationship to me.

A second letter, sent the following week, included a photograph and an offer to arrange an independent DNA test without publicity.