Chapter 18 - Rebecca
Rebecca did not look like me.
That disappointed me.
I hated that it disappointed me.
She had brown eyes, silver hair, and hands that never stopped moving.
We met in a diner in Queens.
She ordered tea and didn't drink it.
“I saw you on television,” she said.
“That's becoming a problem.”
She smiled.
Same left-cheek dimple.
There it was.
I nearly cried over a dimple.
She told me she had been seventeen.
My father had offered her parents money.
They took it.
She had not.
“They told me you died.”
The sentence was almost identical to Mara's story.
Different decade.
Same machine.
I looked out the window.
“Did you ever look for me?”
“Every year.”
My throat tightened.
“Why didn't you find me?”
“Because I was looking for Adrian Cole.”
I had no answer.
She reached across the table.
Stopped halfway.
Pulled her hand back.
That small hesitation mattered.
She wasn't claiming me.
She was asking.
I put my hand on the table.
She touched it.
We sat like that.
No dramatic music.
A waitress asked if we wanted pie.
Rebecca laughed through tears.
“Yes.”
I said, “No.”
She ordered two slices anyway.
Apparently genetics had limits.
When I returned home, Maya was sitting on the floor with Micah.
They were drawing.
Mara stood in the kitchen.
“How was it?”
“We had pie.”
“That bad?”
“That weird.”
She nodded.
I leaned against the counter.
“I don't know what family means anymore.”
Mara looked toward the children.
“Maybe that's not the worst thing.”
Before I could answer, Brielle arrived.
Uninvited.
Mara raised an eyebrow.
Brielle held up both hands.
“I come in peace.”
She gave me a folder.
“My father's accounts.”
“You stole these?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm done protecting him.”
Inside was evidence tying Charles to illegal payments, intimidation, and the warehouse.
Enough to bury him.
Then Brielle looked at Mara.
“And there's something you need to know.”
Mara stiffened.
Brielle swallowed.
“My father didn't order Maya taken from the hospital.”
“Who did?”
Brielle looked at me.
“Thomas Whitaker.”
My father.
Again.
“But he wasn't hiding her from Charles.”
“Then why?”
Brielle opened the last page.
A medical report.
Maya had been born with a rare condition requiring expensive treatment.
My father had moved her to a private hospital under another identity.
He saved her life.
Then he never gave her back.
Mara sank into a chair.
“He saved her and stole her.”
“Yes.”
Two truths.
Both unbearable.
Then Maya appeared in the doorway.
May you like
She had heard everything.
