Chapter 4
Nathan asked me to sit beside him while Daniel explained what he had found.
The payment to Ellen Brooks had passed through two companies, but the authorization came from Charles Vale’s office. Daniel had also found a second payment, made that morning, to Northbridge Services.
“What did he pay them to do?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet. Detective Ramirez has the records.”
I looked toward the bedroom. Lily was asleep with her drawing beside her pillow.
“Charles watched her grow up,” I said. “He knew where she went to school.”
Nathan sat so still that I reached for his hand. He held mine carefully, avoiding my injured shoulder.
“We’ll move somewhere he can’t reach,” he said.
“We already did.”
“I know.” His voice broke. “I’m sorry.”
The next morning, the hospital called with our test appointment. Lily had to give a cheek swab. I explained it to her in simple terms: the doctor would use a soft little brush, and it would help grown-ups answer an important question.
“Do you need to know if he’s my daddy?” she asked me.
I nearly said I already knew. I did know. But she deserved the truth without my fear tangled around it.
“I know he is,” I said. “This helps other people know too.”
Nathan waited in the hall until Lily invited him in. She held my hand for the swab. Afterward, she asked if Nathan had needed one.
“Yes,” he said.
“Were you brave?”
“I tried.”
She decided that was enough.
We went to a small apartment Daniel had arranged for us. It belonged to his sister, who was staying with family, and it had a room with yellow curtains for Lily.
Nathan brought groceries. He stood in the doorway with two bags and waited for me to tell him where to put them. The man whose face appeared on business magazines was afraid to put milk in the wrong place.
I showed him the kitchen.
That afternoon, Detective Ramirez came to take my statement about Victoria. I told her exactly what happened, including Victoria’s threat.
Ramirez asked whether Lily had heard it.
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t ask her to remember it for us,” she said. “A specialist can speak with her if needed.”
I was grateful she said it. Lily had already carried too much.
After Ramirez left, Nathan told me he had suspended the Northbridge contract. His company had paid the firm for years under a vague security budget. His father had started it, and Nathan had approved renewals without asking enough questions.
“I signed one last spring,” he said.
“You didn’t know they were watching us.”
“I should have known what I was paying for.”
He called the board and ordered an independent review of every Northbridge payment. Charles protested before the review had even started.
That night, my mother called.
I had hidden our location from her for years. She had known why. Now she had seen my photograph online and wanted to come.
“I can look after Lily,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to do everything alone.”
For a moment, I could not answer. My mother had lost work after Nathan’s father threatened her employer. She had still sent me money whenever she could.
“You’ve already done so much.”
“I’m her grandmother, Grace.”
Lily heard her voice and ran for the phone.
I watched her laugh for the first time since the kitchen.
Two days later, the test result arrived. Nathan asked me to open it with him. Lily was in the next room playing with my mother, who had arrived that morning.
The result confirmed what I had told him.
Nathan read it, put it down, then asked if he could keep a copy.
“Of course.”
“I know a piece of paper doesn’t make me her father.”
“It lets you stop defending the truth to people who never tried to find it.”
He nodded.
For a while, we sat without speaking. Then he took a small photograph from his pocket.
It showed me five years earlier, laughing beside him at a summer fair. I remembered the day. We had eaten terrible fried dough and stayed until the lights came on.
“My father told me you left with someone else,” Nathan said. “I believed you didn’t want me to follow.”
“I thought you’d decided I wasn’t worth losing his approval.”
“We both believed him.”
I looked at the photograph. We had been so young, and he had taken so much from us.
A knock sounded at the door.
Daniel had news. Police had found Victoria at a house owned by Charles. She had refused to speak without a lawyer, but they had taken her in for questioning about the assault and the safe.
“They found documents in her bag,” Daniel said. “Some appear to be from your father’s office.”
Nathan rose. “What kind of documents?”
Daniel glanced toward Lily’s room.
“One is an agreement with Charles. It mentions custody.”
My chest tightened.
“Custody of whom?”
“I haven’t seen the whole page,” he said. “Ramirez asked us to come in.”
I went to tell my mother we needed her to stay with Lily. When I came back, Nathan was still holding the old photograph.
He slipped it into his pocket and opened the door for me.
May you like
At the station, Ramirez laid a copy of the agreement in front of us.
The heading carried Lily’s name.
