Chapter 8
A photo of me at twelve holding a fish I had hated touching.
I frowned.
“Who had access?”
“You. Me.”
She paused.
“And one other person.”
Cassandra leaned forward.
“Who?”
My mother’s eyes met mine.
“Your father’s attorney.”
I searched my memory.
“Samuel Cross?”
“Yes.”
“He retired years ago.”
“Officially.”
“What does that mean?”
My mother folded the note carefully.
“Three months after Richard died, Samuel came to the house and asked me to destroy several documents from your father’s private files.”
My pulse quickened.
“What documents?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“Of course I asked.”
“And?”
“He told me they involved a promise Richard had made before you were born.”
I stared at her.
“What kind of promise?”
“He refused to explain unless I agreed to destroy the papers.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Where are they?”
My mother looked toward the folder.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“They disappeared before I could read them.”
The hotel room seemed suddenly too quiet.
“When?”
“The same week Samuel visited.”
“And you never told me?”
“I thought it concerned business.”
“Everything concerned business.”
“Damon.”
She was right to stop me.
Anger was pulling me in every direction.
I took a breath.
Cassandra reached for the cream note.
“What would a promise made before Damon was born have to do with me?”
“No idea,” Eleanor said.
“Or the twins?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone vibrated.
All three of us looked down.
A text.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
At first, I saw only an image.
An old photograph.
Four people standing on the deck of a sailboat.
My father.
My mother.
A much younger Jonathan Vale.
And a fourth person I did not recognize.
A woman.
Dark hair.
White summer dress.
Her arm linked through Jonathan’s.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date.
July 14, 1985.
Two years before I was born.
Below the date was a sentence.
Four families. One agreement.
My mother made a sound beside me.
Barely a whisper.
“Oh, no.”
I looked at her.
“You know her.”
She didn’t answer.
“Mother.”
Her eyes remained fixed on the woman in the photograph.
Cassandra moved closer.
“Who is she?”
My mother’s lips parted.
Before she could speak, another message arrived from the unknown number.
You are asking the wrong question about Miles.
I stared at the screen.
A third message appeared.
Ask why he believed the children had to remain hidden until you learned who your father was.
My chest tightened.
Then the final message came.
And ask Eleanor what happened to Jonathan Vale’s daughter.
I looked at my mother.
Her face had gone white.
Cassandra saw it too.
“Jonathan had a daughter?”
My mother sat perfectly still.
I lowered the phone.
“Who was she?”
Eleanor looked at me.
Then at Cassandra.
Then toward the two children sleeping peacefully only a few feet away.
When she finally spoke, her voice was almost inaudible.
“Her name was Claire.”
I waited.
May you like
My mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“And twenty-eight years ago, she disappeared.”
