"I don't know anything about my father. My mother never—"
"Your mother never told you because she was afraid. She had good reason to be afraid. But the truth doesn't disappear just because we refuse to look at it." His voice drops, becomes almost intimate. "Don't you want to know, Poppy? Don't you want to understand why your life has been shaped by secrets you were never allowed to see?"
I close my eyes, my free hand drifting unconsciously to my stomach. The baby growing inside me—a baby whosegrandfather is apparently a mystery worth hiding, whose father is a murderer, whose entire existence is tangled in webs I can't even see.
Don't I owe it to this child to know the truth?
"Where?" I hear myself ask. "Where do you want to meet?"
"There's a café on Bay Street. The Willow. Do you know it?"
I don't, but I can find it. "When?"
"Day after tomorrow. Two o'clock. Come alone—I'm sure I don't need to tell you what will happen if you bring your keeper along."
My keeper. The word stings more than it should.
"I'll be there."
"Good." Warmth floods back into his voice. "I think you'll find our conversation illuminating, Ms. Rivers. I look forward to it."
The line goes dead.
I sit motionless in the library, the phone still pressed to my ear, my heart hammering against my ribs. What have I just agreed to? What door have I just opened?
Tell Gabriel, the rational part of my brain insists.Tell him about Zach, about the call, about the meeting. Let him handle it.
But another part—the part that's been growing stronger with each passing day, fed by secrets and silences and the growing distance between us—rebels against the idea.
Gabriel has been hiding things from me. I can see it in his eyes, feel it in the tension that radiates from him every time helooks at me. Whatever he learned at those meetings, whatever truth he's been wrestling with, he hasn't shared it.
Why should I share mine?
The thought is petty, childish, probably dangerous. But I can't shake it. I've been stumbling through his world blind, dependent on information he chooses to dole out, kept in the dark about things that apparently concern my own family.
Maybe it's time I found my own source of light.
I spend the rest of the morning in a daze, going through the motions of normalcy while my mind races through possibilities. What does Zach know about my father? What connections exist between my family and the Ambroses that have been hidden for twenty-five years?
And why does everyone seem so afraid of me finding out?
The hours crawl by, each minute weighted with anticipation and dread. I wander the estate aimlessly, trailing my fingers along serpent carvings, pausing at locked doors, cataloging all the mysteries I've been forbidden to solve.
In Gabriel's study, I find myself standing before his desk, staring at the locked drawers that undoubtedly contain secrets of their own. I could search. I could dig through his things, read his correspondence, try to piece together what he's been hiding.
But that feels like a step too far. A betrayal I'm not yet ready to commit.
Besides, Zach is offering to hand me the answers on a silver platter. All I have to do is show up.
Gabriel returns around noon, as Mrs. Bloom predicted. He finds me in the library, still curled in the same chair, the same book open to the same page.
"You're pale," he says, crossing to stand in front of me. His hand cups my chin, tilting my face up to study me. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Just tired."
"You've been tired a lot lately." His thumb strokes my cheek, gentle but searching. "Maybe you should see a doctor."
The suggestion sends ice through my veins. A doctor would confirm what I already know. A doctor would make this real in a way I'm not ready for.
