“I hope you’re not mad—” I say.
“No, of course not. I appreciate it,” she replies, but I can hear the dread in her voice. It is what it is, I think. She needs to know what she’s dealing with—that everything she thought she knew has been a falsely constructed narrative meant to hide the truth from her. She glances down at the first sheet of paper. “Oh God,” Ellie says. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Bullseye,I think. But what I say is, “I’m sorry. It’s so awful Ididn’t know if I should share it with you.”
“No, no, I need this.” She flips to the second sheet and scans it before flipping the papers over and setting them back on the coffee table. “He raped someone.”
I can almost see her heart hammering in her throat.
“There’s more,” I continue, determined to give her the full picture even if it kills her. “There’s a cancelled order for child support.”
“W-what? What does that mean?”
“It means he had a baby with the woman he raped—one of them at least. The charges for lapsed support were dropped, though, so I bet he settled with her out of court,” I explain.
“Oh.” I can see goosebumps rise on Ellie’s arms.
“I searched the woman’s name—there isn’t anything on the internet about the case itself, but I did find her social media profiles. She has a pretty unique name, so I’m pretty confident it’s her.”
“Oh.” Ellie’s voice is barely above a whisper.
“She lives on Long Island now.” I push. “She owns a hair salon.”
Ellie only nods, finally at a loss for words.
“El—” I say with a sigh, pretending this is harder for me than it actually is, “she has a daughter.”
Ellie blinks, then nods.
“And she’s the right age to be...” I pause for dramatic effect, “your half-sister.”
“Fuck...” Tears well in Ellie’s eyes then. “You were right,” she says, wiping at her tears. “There isn’t enough wine on the island of Manhattan to get me through this.”
I frown, feigning as much sympathy as I can before I pull her in for a tight hug. “Do you know her name? My half-sister,I mean.”
I nod. “I made a note of it in the margins of the last page.” I rub Ellie’s back with as much care as I can muster. “I’m sorry your father isn’t who he says he is, and I hate that I was the bearer of bad news.”
“It’s okay—it honestly makes more sense now. I was thinking I would just ignore any more emails from The Society but... I don’t think I can now. It seems like they hold the key to a piece of my past that I didn’t know existed.”
“Yeah...” I say, nodding. “And I hate to say it, but there’s more in his record, Ellie. I bet he paid a lot of people off to keep this part of his past quiet. And this is just reports from the women who went to the police—I’m sure there’s more who were too afraid to report him...”
“Yeah...” Ellie presses her lips together, eyes lingering on the stack of papers. “I think I need some time alone. I think I’m going to take a sleeping pill and just knock myself out ’til next week. I’m sorry I called you so late.” Ellie stands, walking in the direction of the door. I’m guessing that’s my cue to leave. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”
“Yeah, of course. I’m always here for you, anytime.” I wrap her in a final hug and then excuse myself and walk back down the hall to my apartment, my grin growing a little wider with every step.Ready. Aim. Fire.
Twenty-One
Ellie
I type the name of my father’s daughter into the search bar.Dakota Lily Wilder.My heart pounds in my chest as a list of social media profiles pop up. The only one that mentions that name exactly is at the top. I lean in, squint, then click on her name. Does she look like me? I can’t tell. Her hair is an unnaturally bleached shade of platinum blonde. Her cheekbones are high, and her piercing ice blue eyes are lined with a thick ring of kohl liner. I don’t recognize anything in her features, but then, that probably doesn’t mean much. She looks to be within a few years of my own age, though the dark circles under her eyes indicate an overall sense of exhaustion.
Her profile is set to private, so the only thing I have to go off of is the few profile pictures that are available to me.
“You still up?” Jack’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. I close my browser window and then shut my laptop before turning just as he opens the door to the bedroom. “Saw the light on from the sidewalk when I walked up.”
“Can’t sleep—you know how it goes,” I murmur.
“Hey—” he steps further into the room, “I wanted to touchbase with you about the other day.”
