“This is not me lying to you,” he says, brows smoothing as his voice adopts a less hostile tone. “This is me telling you as soon as we didn’t have to focus all our attention on getting out of that place, okay?”
I’m soaked through and shivering again, but it’s his words that set my teeth chattering. I can’t take another bomb right now. I just can’t.
“Never looked into Derek before. I didn’t think he mattered. Honestly, the first news story about him that I even watched was that one with you at the motel. But after the sonogram, I had this nagging thought in my mind, like I was forgetting something, overlooking it, you know, because it wasn’t important before.”
“Malcolm.” I need him to just say it.
“When we split up at Silver Living, I was late meeting you because I had to check, make sure I was wrong. I wasn’t.” His lungs visibly inflate and deflate, but the only sign of discomfort is a small twitch in his cheek. “The night Derek died, it wasn’t just him and his parents having dinner when your mom showed up. His wife was there too. His very pregnant wife.”
“You might have a half sister,” Malcolm says.
A sister. A sister.I repeat the words in my head over and over again. We’re standing in the middle of someone’s lawn, and I might have a sister.
I lift my gaze to his. I don’t know how he can tell that there’s anything more than rain on my face, but he moves toward me, and slowly, like he knows I might not welcome the gesture but he’s offering it anyway, Malcolm hugs me.
I sink into him, my arms coming up to clutch his shoulders, and I notch my head beneath his chin.
A sister.
And Mom knew. She was there. She would have seen Derek’s wife that night at the Abbott estate, even if she somehow didn’t know before. I want to believe she didn’t know Derek was married, but I can’t make things true just by wanting them to be. Mom might have entered willingly into an affair with a married man who had a pregnant wife. I can’t imagine her doing something like that now, but nearly twenty years ago? If she did that…
I jerk away from Malcolm and the comforting warmth of his body, of him. Whatever else she did, whatever lies she felt she had to tell, whatever things she kept from me, she isn’t now, then, or ever capable of killing anyone.
That is the one truth I don’t have to wish into existence.
Malcolm looks at me so long I think he’s going to start chipping away at the fragile footing I’ve found.
“Laura,” Malcolm says while I make a poor attempt at trying to compose myself. “That’s Derek’s widow. She lives here in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have a lot of time, but as far as I could tell, she never gave a single interview—TV, newspaper—nothing. I had to dig to find a current address, because the woman doesn’t want to be found almost as much as your mom.”
“But you did find it?”
Malcolm gives me a “Come on” look, like the question is almost an insult.
“Then we’ve got to get to her,” I say. “If she was there that night, then she knows everything. Maybe that’s why she shunned the press. Maybe the Abbotts paid her off, or maybe…” Different scenarios tumble in my brain, and several spill from my lips before Malcolm quiets me when his fingers reach for mine.
“I looked for her because…I honestly I don’t know why. Maybe so you could know. But, Katelyn…” His hand slips higher to fully envelop mine. He squeezes, once. “You can’t go see her. You get that, right? Your mom is wanted for killing her husband. I’m not saying your mom did it,” he adds as my eyes flare. “Just that she’s been the primary—the only—suspect for almost two decades.”
I tug my hand free. “I know that.” I say it so quietly that the sound barely travels over the pouring rain.
“She doesn’t even know you exist. I mean no one did or your mom would have been a lot easier to find, but you’re still…” He trails off. “Your grandfather, the sonogram, the ring? It all fits. I believe you are Derek’s daughter, and if you are, then you’re proof that Laura’s husband cheated on her. The second you tell her that…it’s not going to be good.”
“Then I won’t tell her unless I have to.” My arms wrap around my midsection at the gut-twisting reminder of my mom’s lies. “I don’t know what I’ll tell her,” I add, forestalling the question I see in Malcolm’s eyes. “I’ll come up with something, but I still have to go.”
She might react violently if I tell her who I am—who I might be—or even call the police. She might break down on her porch in a sobbing mess, and my first meeting with the girl who could be my sister might be over the broken mess of her mother.
Grace. That’s her name, Malcolm tells me. The pull to meet her is just as strong as the one wanting to hear Laura’s side. Possibly even stronger.
Maybe Malcolm knows me better than I accused him of earlier, because no other protests leave his lips. Instead, he says, “Mrs. Laura Boyer lives with her new family, including Grace—though I couldn’t even find a picture of her—in a house not far from the Abbotts’, in Elkins Park. I don’t know how long we were unconscious, but it can’t have been that long.” Malcolm glances around. “I mean, this looks like the same area Silver Living is in, maybe even still Cheltenham. Which means we’re probably only twenty or thirty minutes away.”
I give him a smile. It’s a little shaky, but he returns it.
“Guess it’s your turn again,” he says. “How are we getting there? And just so you know, I’m not hiding any more cash in my other shoe.”
I take a deep breath, letting my cheeks puff out when I release it, then turn on my heel. Mom did this, which means I can too. Taking Malcolm’s hand, I lead us straight to the front door of the house I was intent on approaching earlier.
“Wait, wait. I thought—”
“Don’t say a word,” I tell him as I ring the bell.
