But he’d picked up. And he’d been good to Lilly. “I’m afraid it isn’t Sabrina, Steve. My name’s Charlotte Williams.”
He didn’t seem to know how to respond. “Who are you,and why do you have Sabrina’s phone?” he asked after a heartbeat or two.
“I’m afraid that... Well, I’m sorry to tell you that Sabrina’s no longer with us.”
“What does that mean?”
“She passed away.”
The resulting silence was filled with shock. “You mean she’sdead? How? When?”
“She swerved on a Vespa and…collided with a bus.”
“A bus?” he repeated. “When she was on a Vespa—in Italy?”
“Yes.” Charlotte swallowed against a dry throat. “It happened a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Where’s Lilly?” he asked immediately. “Is she okay? Or—”
“Lilly’s fine,” she broke in. “Or as fine as a twelve-year-old could be in her situation. She wasn’t with Sabrina at the time.”
“Thank God. But... don’t tell me she’s been left with that guy in Italy.”
“She’s not with him anymore. I have her now.”
“And you are...?”
“Her half sister.”
Again, she could feel his surprise. “I wasn’t aware she had a half sister,” he said slowly.
“Sabrina put me up for adoption when she was eighteen. I... I never even knew I was adopted. The people who raised me acted as if I was their own. I would’ve kept believing that, but after Sabrina died, I was contacted about my half sister because she now has no one to take care of her.”
“Sabrina never mentioned she had...”
When he let his words trail off, Charlotte assumed it was because he’d realized how that might make her feel.
“Another child?” Charlotte finished for him. She’d had a good life; it shouldn’t hurt as much as it did that Sabrina hadnever acknowledged her existence. But she couldn’t override the pain.
“Where’d you grow up?” he asked.
“In LA.”
Silence fell. Then he said, “I guess, on some level, that doesn’t completely surprise me. What’s going to happen to Lilly?”
“That’s what I’m trying to decide. I’m twenty-nine and about to be single. I’m not sure I’m her best long-term option. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone else. You don’t know anything about her father, do you?”
“Not a lot. Sabrina told me he lives in Mexico. Owns a fishing charter down there.”
“Do you know if Sabrina had any contact with him?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I don’t think so. He hated her. Accused her of getting pregnant on purpose—as an attempt to trap him—and he wasn’t having it.”
Charlotte gripped her phone tighter. Just how terrible a person was her mother? Although it didn’t seem as if Lilly’s father was much better. Hers probably wasn’t, either. “After knowing Sabrina, would you say you believe that or...?”
“Are you looking for the truth?” he asked.
She winced and braced herself. “Of course.”
