It didn’t escape me that Maddie called the man she thought was her father, Nolan. They’d never been close. I guess now I knew why he’d never really made an effort to bond with her.
I wondered how long he had known.
“Can I see it?”
Maddie quietly stood and walked down the hall to her bedroom. She returned with a large yellow envelope and placed it on the table. My hands shook as I lifted it and flipped it over to spill the contents out. I picked up a picture and gasped.
There in black and white was a picture of me and Cian at the bar, twenty-nine years ago, the night Maddie was conceived.
“Is that when it happened?” Maddie asked.
I nodded as I stared at the look on Cian’s face. I hadn’t noticed it that night, but seeing it now, caught in time, the love in his eyes was unmistakable. No one had ever looked at me the way he was in this picture. I set it aside, picking up the others.
There were dozens.
Pictures of us leaving the bar, entering the hotel. And pictures of me leaving the hotel the next morning in the sameclothes I wore the night before. My hand covered my mouth, and tears filled my eyes.
It had never been a secret. Someone had always known. But who? Had my father sent someone to follow Cian? Or did my husband have someone follow me? And why did they wait almost thirty years to reveal it?
Was it someone unconnected to either my husband or my father?
This didn’t make sense.
“What about the recording?” I asked, looking for the tape.
Maddie pressed the button, and I heard them.
“Why would you do that to your daughter? What happened to family fuckin’ first?”
“I don’t have a fuckin’ daughter,” Nolan spat out.
“You disowned Maddie because she fell in love? You’re a fuckin’ disgrace!”
“You can’t disown someone who isn’t yours,” Kelley snarled.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The bitch fuckin’ cheated. Not even a year into our marriage.”
“Who?” Sal demanded.
“You fucked my sister?” Sal asked. His voice was low and tight. “You fucked my married sister?” Sal asked again, clarifying what he wanted to know.
“Not your kill,” Mac said.
“Fuck you, Mac.”
“You aren’t half the man your father was, Sal. You have your head so far up the family’s ass, you can’t see all the people who have betrayed you.” Kelley continued to spout shit until a gunshot echoed in the room.
I sat there, staring at the small recorder. Someone there had recorded this and sent it to Maddie. But who? Who would want to hurt her this way?
“Did you show this to Cian?” Maddie shook her head. “I’m taking this with me.”
“Mom, no!” Maddie grabbed at the envelope, but I had already shoved everything back inside.
“Sal needs to see this. Someone in the family has betrayed us all, Maddie. This is evidence that could send everyone there that night to prison for the rest of their lives. This is most likely a copy. Which means whoever it was has the original, and they need to be found.”
“Mom.”
