Robbie nodded. “That’s what caught my attention. One might assume coincidence, but that would be a lazy explanation and thought process. So I kept looking, and I found this.”
He turned the screen toward me again.
The image was grainy, taken from a distance, but clearly a cemetery. A crowd dressed in black for a graveside servicehuddled together in front of the coffin. And just off to the side was a teenage boy.
I sucked in a breath. It was Grady.
Younger, with a fuller face.. His jaw was set hard, his shoulders squared as if holding himself upright took every ounce of effort he had.
Beside him stood a younger girl, her face turned into his shoulder. The sister. Mara.
The caption beneath the photo read:Sean Hale with son Jefferson and daughter Mara at the funeral of Celeste Hale.
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding, mind tumbling, searching for something that made sense.
Robbie clicked again. “Three years ago, right after the trial, Jefferson Hale legally changed his name to Grady Nash. He dropped his first name. Kept his middle name. Took his mother’s maiden name.”
The room felt suddenly very quiet. A few pieces of ice shifted in the freezer.
“Three years ago,” I repeated. “That’s when he came to Willet Cove.”
“Yes, which suggests he did so in order to escape from the stigma of his father. He doesn’t want anyone to know who he really is.”
I leaned back in my chair, the pieces sliding together in a way that made my stomach ache. “Including me.” Why that hurt me as much as it did felt very selfish, but there it was anyway. I looked once more at the image of a grieving teenage boy holding his sister’s hand.
“He wanted to start fresh,” I said. “And then, right there on the television screen, he learned of his father’s death.”
“There’s more. He worked as an agent at a prestigious talent agency before he changed his name.”
“He was an agent?” I asked, stunned.
“One of the best, apparently,” Robbie said. “Very well paid.”
“He left his job. And his identity. And started over.”
“It appears that way.”
“I can’t believe this. He’s not just our Grady, the fun surf shack owner. He had this whole other life.”
“A life he no longer wanted, I guess,” Robbie said. “And who could blame him for that?”
“Not me.” Yes, it was understandable. However, the truth was this. He’d not told me who he was. Not a single hint. How had I thought we were close? Everything I knew about him was a lie.
And I had no earthly idea what to think. Or do.
6
GRADY
When I needed her most, the sea would not cooperate. Fog and drizzle made the world gray and white. The surf crashed to shore, chaotic and untamed. Only a fool would attempt to conquer the waves today. Despite my lack of sleep and the tumultuous churning of my thoughts, I was not foolish enough to tempt fate. Instead, I donned running shoes and my workout clothes and headed out across the silky sand to the water’s edge. I put music on and stuck my earbuds in and began to run, steady and slow at first, but increasing speed as I made my way down the beach.
My father was dead at sixty years old. I’d not considered it a possibility, figuring he would rot in prison for many more years to come.
I ran faster, breath coming sharper now, feet sinking and lifting from the sand in a steady cadence. The fog pressed in from all sides, damp and close. I turned the music up, hoping Lady Gaga would keep me from falling into the past. No such luck. The past was louder.
An exposé in a respected magazine had started the unraveling of my father’s legacy. It told the tale of dozens of women, assaulted and then coerced into silence. They wereyoung. A few under the age of eighteen. Their stories were remarkably similar. A business meeting in a hotel room with Sean Hale. Promises of a part in his latest movie. Instructions to come alone. When they arrived, they discovered it was not a meeting to discuss their career but an invitation to his bed. When they refused, he took matters into his own hands. Either do what I want, or never work in this town again. To anyone outside of Hollywood it might have seemed unrealistic that these young women would ever make a bargain with a man like that. But some did, their desire for work making them vulnerable. Giving Sean Hale what he wanted was part of the world they’d chosen. Others, though, escaped. And they never worked again.
Soon after the article was published, he was arrested, followed by a trial that made the headlines for months. And my sister and I were left adrift, unable to reconcile what we’d thought was true and what was clearly not. What did it all mean to us? Were we bad people for not recognizing the truth?
