No matter how hard she tried, Nina couldn’t look away. She couldn’t understand whether this was real or some kind of waking nightmare. He calmly grabbed the German shepherd by the collar, turned it around, and led it back toward the yard. The dog obeyed him instantly.
Lynn walked beside him. She was talking, laughing. She was happy. They looked like an ordinary father and daughter.
It was breaking Nina apart.
Her mind screamed with questions. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Was there even a chance thatLeonard had been wrong and Lynn wasn’t her daughter? That was possible, right? Far more possible than the idea that her tormentor was raising the child she’d forsaken.
A wave of horror rolled through her body. She was shaking like a taut wire, every cell frozen with fear and shock, with the full understanding of what she had just seen.
Lynn lived with him.
Lynn called him Dad.
That man—the one she had spent her entire life trying to forget.
And yet he was here.
And he was with her daughter.
That cruel, brutal, amoral monster.
How could they have given her to him? What else didn’t she know? What the hell had happened twenty years ago? Did Frank know? Had her father known? Could they have delivered Lynn straight into his hands?How else could she have ended up with him?
Her head was spinning. There was no one left to ask. Her father was dead. And Frank… Frank must not know yet that she had found Lynn.
Jasper led the shepherd back into the house and closed the door behind them, sealing his perfect life behind high walls.
She should’ve driven away immediately.She never should’ve seen this.But she couldn’t even move. The shock was too strong.
Why, damn it, had she never once asked who exactly had adopted her daughter? Why had she told Leonard not to send any personal details? Just the address and the photo. If she’d known, she would’ve understood everything at once. She could’ve prepared herself—if something like this could even be prepared for.
At the very least, she wouldn’t have been shattered this badly.
A few minutes later, they stepped back outside, and Nina found herself frozen, unable to tear her eyes away from them.
Jasper walked beside Lynn. They were clearly looking for something, peering into the bushes. Nina sank deeper into the driver’s seat. They were too close to her car. Her heart hammered so loudly in her chest she thought they might hear it. Thank God the windows were tinted and they couldn’t see her.
But she could hear them.
“Dad, I swear I saw some woman standing with my cat,”Lynn’svoice trembled with anxiety.
Nina blinked several times.
Cat?
“You’re sure?” Jasper asked calmly, and at the sound of his voice cold, sticky sweat broke out on her skin.
“Yes! I can’t believe this. Even in a nice neighborhood you can run into people like that. How could she steal Mike?”
Nina jerked her head toward the passenger seat. Curled up there, fast asleep, was the kitten she had thought she had rescued.
It was Lynn’scat.
She had stolen her own daughter’s cat.
The realization struck her like a blunt instrument. God, what kind of nightmare had she fallen into? What kind of cruel, ridiculous, unbearable absurdity.
But stepping out and handing him over was beyond her strength. She shouldn’t see Lynn. And she definitely shouldn’t see Jasper.
