Chapter 2
M y mom choked on her words as I tried to make sense of them. “Okay,” I said, looking over at Tris’s concerned face. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” I hung up the phone just as Tris parked beside my motorbike.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, distracted. How was my dad missing? Did he just wander off and disappear? “Look, I’m sorry, but can you?—”
“Yes,” Tris interrupted. “I’ll get the story ready for tomorrow as long as you trust my editing.”
“You know I do,” I said with a smile as I collected my bag off the floor and hopped out of the van. “I’ll call you later. Thanks.”
Tris gave me a wink just before I slammed the door shut.
Climbing onto my bike and slipping the helmet over my unruly hair, I immediately began to think of every single worst-case scenario I could.
And then, as I kicked the bike into start and meandered my way out of Eastray Square, I took a deep breath and tried to bring my rational mind back to the forefront.
My father was probably at the bar betting on some chosal ball game.
He didn’t do much more than that. Work, bar, home.
That was his routine. And, for as long as I could remember, he and my mom didn’t always get along very well, but he wouldn’t just pick up and leave. He wasn’t strong enough for that.
My brain continued to stir with thoughts and scenarios as I drove through the streets that would take me further east into Ashaven toward the house I grew up in. I may have already outed Walter Klews tonight, but now I wondered if I would have to use my skills to track down my missing dad, too.
Shifting into a higher gear, I swerved effortlessly through the dark streets, thankful for the late hour and minimal traffic.
On this side of New Rothwick, most streets were lined with small brick townhomes and even smaller single-family homes with just enough room to have a driveway and a backyard.
Many citizens either worked in the Trafford Pines business district or in Ruskin Row at one of the many factories.
Not everyone could afford a car, but at least on this side of the city, the commute to work was feasible on a bike.
I arrived on my street without even remembering much of the drive…
using muscle memory to make the turns while my brain stirred with a thousand different scenarios.
And when I pulled into the small, cobblestone driveway, there was no mistaking that I was in the right place.
Tiny silken flags lined the walkway leading to the front door.
I think my mother was the only one in the neighborhood to decorate for the summer solstice—a holiday typically celebrated in Kilderoy and not south of the cliffs.
Green, gold, and white banners swooped down in front of the large bay window, and this year she even put green lights around the porch beams. It looked awful.
The light in the living room was on, but I couldn’t see through the curtains. So, when I stepped through the front door, I was surprised to see my mother standing there, in the dark, waiting for me.
“Mom! Shit, you scared me.”
“Shh,” she whispered. “And watch your language.”
I heard a shout in the living room and gave my mom a look. “What was that? ”
She shook her head and tried to pull me past the opening and into the kitchen at the back of the house.
“Mom, that sounded like Dad.” Yanking out of her grip, I took a few steps back toward the front door. And sure enough, there, on his recliner with a beer in hand, was my father shouting at the television and totally oblivious to my arrival. I pointed at him and looked at my mom. “You found him?”
“Come here, honey.” She grabbed my arm and quickly pulled me through the glass sliding doors and outside onto the back deck where she’d called me from.
“Mom, you’re kind of freaking me out here. What’s going on?”
Looking over my shoulder as though my lazy father would even bother getting off the chair and follow us outside, she pulled a photo out of her pocket. It was folded in half and worn down around the edges. “I need to tell you something, and I need you to promise me that you won’t be angry.”
That pit in my stomach gnawed at my skin. “I can’t do that.”
“Sosasia, please,” she whisper-shouted.
“Mom, I have no idea what you’re going to tell me, so no, I can’t promise you anything. But please tell me anyway.” I didn’t know what I was about to hear, but somewhere deep down inside, I knew my life was about to change directions.
My mom lifted the photo and stared down at it. Rubbing her thumb over the top, she started to cry. “Sosasia, I’m so sorry I never told you.”
“For gods sake, Mom. What’s going on?” Ripping the photo out of her hand, I tried to see what had her so upset.
In it, my mom, with her gorgeous long, black hair and tight black dress, smiled widely at a man who had his arm over her shoulder.
His own dark curls hung down to his chin, and he wore nothing but a pair of black jeans.
His perfect body had me instantly understanding what my mom was smiling about, but I still didn’t know what this had to do with my dad. “Who is this? ”
She sucked in several sobs and couldn’t seem to get the words out. That sinking feeling grew.
“Mom?” I asked, voice trembling. My dad shouted in the living room again, screaming something about a bad foul, when my mother’s reaction hit me. “Mom,” I asked again, “who is this?”
She slowly took the photo back and looked down at the happy couple. “Sosasia, this is Gilanders. I met him twenty-six years ago. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen?—”
“Mom!” I shouted, trying to snap her out of her trance. “Why should I care about this?”
“Sosasia, I never told you, but…but I was already pregnant when I met your father. I was pregnant with Gil’s child.”
As though refusing to piece it together, my brain kept me in the dark. “Well, what happened to the baby?”
“Sosie,” she whispered, using my nickname and softening her voice. Her hand cupped my cheek, forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Gil is your biological father. Not Stuart.”
Am I a horrible person if I admit that a small part of me felt relieved? I mean, I loved my dad, but we’d never been best friends. We’d never even had a good relationship. He fussed over my brother so much more than me, and now it was all starting to make sense.
But Stuart wasn’t my dad?
“Mom, I don’t understand.”
“Honey,” she said in that mom tone she always got when she had to explain something, “Gil and I had a fling, and that resulted in you. Your father was kind enough not to let that stop us from being together, and he always raised you like his own.”
“So, when you said that my dad was missing, you meant…?” I couldn’t remember the man’s name.
“Gil. Yes, I meant Gilanders.”
“Well, how do you know? Are you still in touch with him?” My mother’s answer would change the way I felt about this whole situation. Not only had she lied to me for twenty-five years, but she might have been cheating on my dad, too.
“No, no, honey. Gil and I haven’t spoken since the night this picture was taken.”
Watching her look down at the photo like a wistful teen made my stomach churn. “So, how do you know about him being missing, and why are you telling me?” My tone may have been clipped, but I was losing patience.
“A man stopped by earlier tonight looking for Gilanders.”
“A man? Who?”
“I don’t remember his name, but he gave me his card.” She fished it out of her back pocket and pushed it into my hands. “He thought maybe I’d seen Gil recently.”
Reading the single name engraved in large gold letters, I looked back up at her. “Why, Mom? Why would Kaelan think that?”
She hung her head. “Maybe Gil told him about me?”
From the way her eyes twitched, I knew she was withholding information. “What else?”
With a shrug, she let out a deep breath. “Kaelan knew you were his daughter.”
“Holy hell, Mom. How many people know about this?” I hated the way I sounded right now, but screw it. My whole life just got flipped upside down, and I had every right to be a little angry.
“I never told a soul.” Her voice trembled with the truth, and I instantly felt like a piece of shit for being mad at her. Gil’s disappearance was obviously upsetting her, and I should be a better daughter.
“Mom, come here.” I wrapped my arms around my mother’s tiny frame.
We were both petite, but I still had a few inches on her.
Come to think of it, I looked nothing like my dad…
I mean Stuart. How had I not noticed that before?
My heart pounded as I replayed twenty-six years of memories Stuart and I shared.
A game, a graduation, that time I put a dent in his bike.
Nothing th at stirred a whole lot of emotion inside.
The emptiness of missing my father’s love suddenly didn’t bother me as much.
That aching hole I’d always carried around began to close as I thought about how Stuart loved my mom enough to accept both of us into his life.
He was capable of love. He just showed it in a different way.
I felt the tears coming to the surface and quickly pushed them back down when I noticed my mom’s muscles tense as she started rocking back and forth on her feet.
“I’m so sorry, Sosasia. I know this is a lot to ask, but you’re good at investigating things. Do you think you could meet with Kaelan and see if you can help find Gil?”
I pushed back and studied my mom. “He really meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”
She nodded and wiped at her tears. “He was a good man.”
“But he left you young and pregnant.”
Shaking her head, she grabbed my hands. “No, honey. He didn’t leave us. He was only passing through. He…he couldn’t stay.”
A pang of anger raced through my blood. Why wouldn’t she track him down?
Why should a man be allowed to skip through life impregnating anyone in their path and then walk away without taking any responsibility?
Times hadn’t changed that much for my mom to take some kind of action.
Although I guess she did. She married my dad and raised a family with him. I suppose that meant something.
“Sosie, will you do it?” Using my nickname again meant that she was worried I wouldn’t.
I sighed. “Will you feel better if I look into this?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll do it. For you.”
She pulled me into a hug that I half-heartedly returned, my mind still focused on trying to process everything I learned in the last ten minutes. “Thank you. Now, your father and your brother know nothing about this, and if it’s all that same to you, I’d like to keep it that way, okay?”
“Sure,” I mumbled.
“Sosasia?”
“I said okay, Mom.” I mean, it’s not like I wanted to broadcast that I was the result of a one-night stand anyway.
“Please let me know what you find out.” She kissed me on the cheek, pushed the photo into my hand, and ran back inside.
“Thanks, Mom,” I grumbled.
Good lord, what a night. While I had been on such a high an hour ago, I now questioned everything I’d ever known. How many lies had my mom told me? How much of Gilanders did I have in me? What was his family history? His medical history? Did he ever wonder about how I was doing?
I looked down at the photo, and familiar eyes stared back at me. I had his hair. And his skin tone. And probably even his smile.
“Dammit, Mom.”
Flipping the business card around in my hand, I finally read the information on the back of it.
“What the hell is House of Treasures?” I recognized the address as being close to the border between Casiopia Park and Gorgian Point, but that was about it.
A small part of me—okay, a pretty large part of me—loved the investigative challenge this posed.
A mystery man showing up on my mom’s doorstep with nothing but a card. Who was he? How did he know Gil?
Was he my brother?