"Alright."

Emily Blair's tone was icy. "But if you keep looking at me with that scheming glint in your eyes, I'll take it back. The offer's off the table."

Tristan Davis stared at her with that same unnervingly bright gaze, as if he was dreaming up something outrageous.

A vague sense of foreboding crept over Emily.

Tristan just shrugged. "Let's put a pin in it for now. I haven't made up my mind. I'll let you know when I do."

Emily curled her lips in annoyance. "Fine."

She dropped her gaze and went back to studying Matthew Ross's file.

All the copies of Matthew Ross's overseas exchange applications were here. Emily leafed through the documents but found nothing out of the ordinary—he was perfectly qualified to receive government sponsorship for his studies abroad.

Allison had also managed to bring back most of Matthew's travel records from recent years. Because he occasionally attended international conferences, his itinerary included several trips overseas.

The country he visited most often was Astoria. Over the past few years, he'd been abroad more than ten times, always for academic exchanges or lectures—each trip fully justified.

"If the local police couldn't find him, maybe he really did flee abroad," Emily said.

She tapped the names of a few countries on the list. "These are the ones we need to focus on."

Tristan ruffled her hair, his response direct and to the point. "Got it."

As expected, Tristan worked fast. By the following afternoon, a flood of information landed in Emily's inbox.

Tristan: [You called it. They really did disappear overseas with new identities. Take a good look.]

Emily received the message just after leaving an industry networking event. She was still in the car, caught in the evening rush hour, traffic crawling along in fits and starts.

The files Tristan sent were massive; it took several minutes for them to finish downloading.

She opened the folder to find a series of clearly labeled documents.

The very first file was a set of photos taken at the entrance of a university in Astoria, captured by a global facial recognition system. Brandon Ross and Helen Ross stood outside the campus gates, each with a black backpack slung over one shoulder, arms cradling a stack of books.

The next few images were close-ups, zoomed in for comparison. The facial features matched perfectly-there was no doubt it was them.

The following document contained the university registration details for both Brandon and Helen. According to the school records, the young man was now called Peter Clark, and the woman, Amanda Clark. Their listed parents were supposedly ordinary employees at a small company in southern Eldervale. Every detail-where they went to grade school, middle school, high school, even college- was completely fabricated, not a single fact lining up with what Allison had uncovered. The entire backstory was forged.

With these false identities, they'd managed to secure spots in the graduate program at this foreign university. But they hadn't received any scholarships, and tuition alone was nearly three hundred thousand dollars a year. With living expenses and other costs, the total was astronomical—an amount most people couldn't save in a lifetime.

They'd both enrolled for master's and then doctoral programs, spending years and a fortune at the school.

Tristan had also run background checks on their so-called parents.

As expected, nothing came up. There were no records anywhere of a Peter Clark, Amanda Clark, or their alleged family. They simply didn't exist.