“That makes two of us,” she murmured. “Tell me about her. Was my father with her? And where is she now?”
Franklin scrubbed his hand over his face. “No, your father wasn’t with her. I got the feeling she was running from something. Maybe him or an abusive relationship. Maybe she was just looking for a new start that the surrogacy money would give her. I’m afraid I don’t know. In fact, I hadn’t thought of Belinda in years until your sheriff showed me that sketch of her.”
“And since you recognized it, why didn’t you mention it then and there?” Ethan demanded.
“Because like I said, that doesn’t have anything to do with now. Well, other than how this is affecting Livvy.” He stopped, muttered some profanity. “As for where Belinda is…” His words trailed off. “I think I should start at the beginning.”
“Do that,” Ethan snapped. Still not offering up any niceties. And still not sure he was buying any of this. But with a name at least now Livvy might possibly have a starting point. She might finally learn who she was and what had happened when she was a child.
“Like I said,” Franklin went on, and he wrapped his arms around himself and hunched against the cold wind, “Belinda came with you to New Hope, and after I examined her, I hired her for a gestational surrogacy. She lived at New Hope with you during the pregnancy.”
He paused again and seemed to rethink what he’d been about to say. Ethan was certain the man was holding back on something. Maybe something important.
“The delivery went fine,” he continued a moment later, “and Belinda asked if she could stay on for a while and maybe have another gestational surrogacy. We don’t usually do back-to-backs like that, but I made an exception. I told her she couldrecover for six months and then she could carry another baby. Five months into that waiting period, she disappeared.”
Beside him, he felt Livvy’s arm tense. “With me?”
Franklin nodded but then stopped again. “Or so that’s what Chloe told me,” he amended.
Ethan felt the ice slide through his body, and it had nothing to do with the cold wind. “Chloe?” he questioned.
“Yes, when I asked where Belinda was, Chloe said she’d up and left with her daughter. And I believed her.” Franklin’s voice cracked a little. “I knew that Chloe didn’t like Belinda. Paul was alive then, and she was jealous of the attention he was showing Belinda. So, I figured that Chloe had paid Belinda off or done something to convince her to leave.”
Franklin squeezed his eyes shut a moment and groaned before he took the manila envelope from beneath his arm. Extending it out to them, Franklin walked to the porch steps. His movements were slow and cautious. No sudden moves to make them think he could be going for a gun. As soon as Livvy took the envelope, Franklin went back into the yard.
The envelope was at least two inches thick, and when Livvy opened it, Ethan saw it was some paper, some of which had been photocopied. There were also two old cassette tapes.
“I’m sure you’ll want to look through all of that,” Franklin explained, “but I can give you the broad strokes now. Let me say first, though, that I’m so very sorry for what Chloe did.”
That ice inside Ethan went up a notch. “What did she do?” he asked.
Franklin tipped his head to the envelope. “It’s all in there, a mix of memos and recordings of conversations and meetings.” He dragged in a long breath. “I didn’t know it at the time, but a few weeks after Belinda and her daughter disappeared, Hank Stover started blackmailing Chloe. Some of his notes are in there.”
“Blackmailing her for what?” Ethan asked, though he was pretty sure he knew where this was going.
The doctor swallowed hard. “For murdering Belinda.”
And there it was. Maybe a lie. But this felt like the cold, hard truth.
“I didn’t find that file until after you came to New Hope and told us that Zadie was dead,” Franklin continued. “Chloe said something after you left. Something about how the past should just die, so when she went to San Antonio for a meeting, I searched her office. I didn’t ransack it,” he insisted. “And I didn’t kill her.”
Again, Ethan had no idea if that was true, and at the moment, he didn’t care. He needed to hear what’d happened to Livvy’s mother.
“After you found the file, you read it and listened to the recordings?” he prompted.
Franklin nodded. “And it took me a while to make sense of it. Then, I realized Hank had tried to blackmail her. The details were all there. Chloe had gotten enraged when she believed Belinda had slept with Paul.”
“Did she?” Livvy asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but Chloe wasn’t always rational when it came to Paul. Anyway, on the recording, Chloe admits she put on surgical gloves, grabbed a knife and went after Belinda when she ran away with you. Unbeknownst to Chloe, Hank was at New Hope visiting his sister, and he followed all three of you. He saw Chloe confront Belinda at the old house. And saw Chloe kill her.”
Hell. Ethan could see it all playing out. The murder that had become Livvy’s nightmare.
“Chloe stabbed Belinda multiple times,” Franklin went on. “And put her in the bathtub.”
Livvy made a soft sound—part groan, part sob. “Where was I during all of this?” she asked.
He glanced away for a moment. “According to what Chloe said on the recording, you were there. You tried to take the knife from her, but she pushed you. You fell, hit your head and went unconscious. Chloe admitted to Hank later that she took the knife because she knew it would have your prints on it and not hers.”
