Chapter 1

My dad died a hero when I was six, saving someone's life.

Grandma's health was failing, and debt collectors kept showing up at our door.

But no matter how poor and tough life got, my mom never remarried.

She always said my dad was a hero.

She told me to be like him, to always do good.

One weekend, a wealthy classmate I'd helped invited me to spend the weekend at her place.

"Dad, honey, open up! I brought a friend home!"

She knocked on the door and shouted.

But when the door opened, I saw it.

Her dad had a face that was identical to my dad's.

"You must be Skylar, right?"

Brooke Stone's dad greeted me warmly and politely.

The resemblance was shocking, absolutely uncanny!

I stared at his face, stunned, rooted to the spot.

The familiar features, the slightly downturned corners of his mouth, and especially that triangular scar beneath his eye.

Aside from a few more lines of age,

he was almost identical to the man in the photos my mom always reminisced over.

Even his English had a subtle hint of the regional accent I knew so well.

"Sir, are you from the Southern area?"

I asked instinctively.

"How did you know that?"

He looked at me in surprise.

"But I left over twenty years ago and haven't been back since."

Twenty years ago?

My dad disappeared when I was six; it had only been sixteen years since then.

The timing didn't quite add up.

Did my dad have a twin brother?

Or could there really be two unrelated people in the world who looked exactly alike?

I followed Brooke into the guest room, still feeling deeply unsettled.

"Are you feeling okay?"

She asked, concerned.

I opened my mouth, a little speechless.

It felt wrong to just blurt out that her dad looked exactly like mine.

I glanced around the room. On the desk was an old family photo of their family.

The date on it was twenty years ago.

I would have been two years old then.

Brooke in the photo must have been just a baby.

Besides that, there were their names.

Arthur Stone was probably her dad.

My dad's name was Arthur Grant, only the first name was similar.

"I'm fine, I just think your parents are both so good-looking. How did they meet?"

I carefully chose my words.

"My mom said that about twenty years ago, she was on a business trip and got robbed. My dad chased them away."

Brooke seemed happy to tell her parents' love story, quite excited.

"They fell in love at first sight. After my mom's work was done, my dad followed her to New York City…"

Riverwood.

I caught the keyword.

I barely heard anything else after that.

That was my hometown.

If this was a coincidence, it was too much of one.

"Do you know where your dad is from?"

I eagerly interrupted her story.

"I don't know that. I heard my grandparents passed away a long time ago, which is why my dad had nothing holding him back from leaving the Southern area, and he never went back."

My grandma passed away when I was eighteen.

Could he really have no connection to my father?

My mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts.

It was almost dinner time, so I decided to try a subtle test.

At the dinner table, I casually brought up the story of my dad dying a hero saving someone.

Hearing that, he snapped his head up, his mouth twitching slightly.

That expression, it was so much like my dad!

Maybe Arthur Stone *was* the supposedly deceased Arthur Grant!