Helen was quiet. Then: “How exactly did Richard find you?” Owen considered this. “I don’t know the full details. He told me he’d been searching for close to a year and he’d eventually hired someone to help.” A year. Helen did the arithmetic. Richard had been quietly searching while they planned the wedding, while she woke at three in the morning sick with guilt.
“He told me directly that he’d used an investigator,” Owen continued. “He didn’t try to soften that. He said: I know this is an unusual way to make contact, and I need you to know that I only want something good to come from it.” Owen paused. “I believed him. I don’t know why—I’d never spoken to him before. But you married someone worth believing.”