He knew the general outline of the family situation — the troubled family, the absent father, the conflict with authorities.

He knew the tattoos that Nicholas had, and he was able to acquire or simulate them.

He knew the hair color — blond — and dyed his own hair to match.

What he could not prepare for was the more subtle physical and behavioral inconsistencies: the face, which was simply not Nicholas’s face; the ear shape, which was not Nicholas’s ear shape; the accent, which was entirely wrong; and the countless small behavioral signals that people who know each other well detect and respond to without conscious analysis.

His solution to these deeper inconsistencies was not to eliminate them — he couldn’t — but to overwhelm them with the emotional force of the trafficking narrative.