She snorted. “My biological mother? Held captive by my own uncle from before I was born?” Tears glistened in her eyes, and her voice turned strident and husky. “I always wondered why he cared so much about me. Loved me sort of like his own. Like he loved his own fucking little bear cubs and fawns. Because Iwaslike them, a rescue. I was pulled out of the river inside my mother. And my ... my ... I don’t even know what to call my parents now. Garrison and Shelley—my kidnappers who I called Mom and Dad my whole life, who I loved with all my heart—are my abductors? Don’t bother thanking me, Angie. I have no joy, no satisfaction at all in having turned in my own. I don’t even have a home anymore. I can’t go back to that lodge.”
“Where are you staying?”
“A friend is renting me a basement suite in town.”
“You know, Axel Tollet did love you, Claire. Garrison and Shelley really did love and raise you as their own. This is partly why they were all so desperate to keep the truth buried, because they didn’t want you to know the truth. They didn’t want to hurt you. Or lose you.”
“Maybe the truth should stay buried sometimes. Maybe justice was already done. Porter Bates got his due.”
“And Annelise? Her parents? And the other women he took—the ones we don’t even know about yet? Jasmine? Her parents, her grandmother—what about them?”
Claire’s mouth went tight as she tried to control her emotions.
“I understand, Claire. I really do. I know what you’re going through.”
“You have no fucking idea what I’m going through.” She turned, eyes ablaze with green fire. “One minute—no, my entire life—I’m Claire Tollet. That’s who I believe I am. Then you show up. And I’m not. I’m ... I don’t know what I am. I don’t know how you do it—rip up lives like this and still go to sleep at night.”
“Idoknow what you’re going through. You know that I do.”
Her gaze lasered Angie’s. There was combat, challenge in her stance.
Gulls swooped and shrieked above.
“I was the angel’s cradle baby, remember? I was dumped in a baby box, slashed with a knife, left with no past, no memory. I was rescued and never told where I’d come from. I was inserted into a dead child’s life, lied to my entire life. Told that baby pics, birth photos of a dead child were of me. I was even given the same name as that dead child. Until it all came apart, that web of deceit, and I learned I had a twin, that I was the offspring of a heinous sex trafficker and a young woman he’d abducted. A man who tried to kill me and who killed my sister and my mother.” Angie paused and continued to hold Claire’s gaze. “So I do understand something of what you’re going through, and I’m here for you, Claire. I’m here, and I know, and I have walked that walk. In the end, you come to realize that the truth is the best way. That closure rounds the circle. Not just for you but all the others impacted by the ripple effects of crime. Because nothing happens in isolation.”
Claire glowered at Angie, her eyes glinting with moisture.
“Here, I brought you something.” Out of the front of her jacket, Angie took the plastic sleeve containing the journal pages Maddocks had scanned for her. She handed them to Claire.
“What are these?”
“They’re what your biological mother wrote while in captivity. It’s evidence that will be used in court, but Maddocks secured copies for me and for you. These pages, these words, belonged to Jasmine. You are her next of kin, so you have a right to them.” Angie paused. “She wrote them to you, Claire.”
Claire lowered her eyes and stared at the tiny writing. “Next of kin,” she whispered. She took the pages from Angie and began to read. As Claire absorbed the first few sentences, strength seemed to whoosh out of her, and she sagged at the knees. Backing up, she sat on a wooden bench along the pier railing. She held her blowing hair off her face as she read the words in an audible whisper.
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight ... I looked into your little eyes and saw they were green as the river that changed me, and I named you Claire ... and one day I will sit at a campfire with you, Claire. One day we’re going to get free ...
She swiped a tear from her cheek. “She named me?”
“She did.”
“She died for me. She died trying to get free for me.”
Angie seated herself beside Claire. “Hold on to that love, Claire. Secrets are forged and kept in the name of love. And hurt in the same.”
Claire looked up and out over the layers of gray upon sea upon cloud upon ocean. The clean, salty wind pinked her nose and cheeks. Tears wet her face. She inhaled deeply.
“What matters, then?” she asked. “What truly matters if life is built on lies?”
“I don’t know. But I want to say truth. Truth matters. It’s what guides me now.”
Claire sat in stunned silence, trying to assimilate what she held in her hands. Her mother’s words.
“You need to hold on to that dream of yours, Claire. The SAR, the tracking. Finding the missing. You can help others find closure. In doing so, you will find yourself.”
“Is that what you do now? You think you’re helping others? Is that what drives you forward?”
Angie smiled wryly. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She paused. “I want you to meet someone.”
