Chapter Forty-Four
Forty-Four
Natalie
Wesley had uttered the two most important worlds in the whole world to her—Gwen Tanner—and now he needed to say a lot more.
He helped himself to one of Natalie’s chairs. “Where should I start?”
Natalie lowered her defenses enough to take a seat across from him.
“I want to be delicate about this,” he said. “How well do you know Gwen?”
“What do you mean?” asked Natalie, debating how oblivious she could play this. He knew something. He knew enough to come to her doorstep and say Gwen’s name.
“Do you know who she really is?” he asked.
Natalie wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“Her real name,” he clarified. “Gwen Tanner is not who she says she is, but my question is, do you already know that?”
“What?” Natalie asked. “Her name?”
Natalie didn’t know what he was trying to say, or if whatever he was trying to say even mattered to her. She watched Gwen every day. As children, for years, they’d slept in the same room. How could this random guy have anything to say that would alter her perception of Gwen?
“Her real name is Marin Haggerty,” he said, waiting for any reaction, but the name meant nothing to Natalie. “Abel Haggerty is her father.” His eyes slivered, seemingly unsure of how his words would land but certain they would have an impact.
Natalie remained expressionless. “The one who died in a fire?”
A sly smile grew in the corner of Wesley’s mouth. “No, Natalie, no one died in a fire. There was no fire.”
Natalie’s fingertips converged. She stared down at them, getting Wesley out of her sight while she processed.
There had been no fire. Gwen’s parents hadn’t died in a fire.
Why would she lie about that? Why would Gwen lie to her about that?
Natalie didn’t want to talk to Wesley anymore; she wanted to talk to Gwen, but that was a fantasy.
She looked back up at him, but she didn’t need to ask. Wesley was brimming with world-shattering information to unload on her.
“Her real father, Abel Haggerty, is an awful man. He was a serial killer and is in prison for life. That’s why she changed her name. That’s why I’m here. It’s what this is all about.”
Natalie struggled to keep up with what he was saying.
She was struggling to hear someone else talk about Gwen at all.
She wanted to tell him to shut up, to tell him he was wrong, but in reality, Natalie had no idea what the truth was.
Was it possible she had no idea who Gwen really was—not anymore and maybe not ever?
She was supposed to be shocked about Gwen’s father being a murderer; Natalie knew that was alarming, but she could only fixate on what this all meant for her and Gwen.
Natalie’s eyes were burning. She knew they were turning red, if not so already. She glared at Wesley and he started to squirm.
He sat back against the chair and held up his palms as if he could push her budding reaction back inside her. “I’m just here for the story,” he insisted.
“What story?” Natalie asked.
“Marin’s mother, Reanne, was just paroled.
She was in prison for helping Abel. I grew up in the area.
I was familiar with what happened, and when I saw she was getting out, I thought it would be a good story.
You know…Is she remorseful? Would she be more forthcoming about her experience?
What had she left in her wake? That sort of thing.
It was ripe for a headline, Mommy Dearest Returns or something titillating like that.
But it only took me a minute to realize the daughter, Marin Haggerty, didn’t exist anymore. She had disappeared.”
Natalie was starting to go numb. Gwen was in hiding and Wesley had gone and dug up her secrets. He was going to write about them and expose her.
“It wasn’t easy to find her,” he continued. “But once I had her new name, Gwen Tanner, I started following her. Not in an inappropriate way. I wanted to figure out the best way to approach her, but that’s when I noticed she already had someone following her.”
Natalie had never worried anyone would notice her other than Gwen. No one existed other than her and Gwen.
“So I had to know,” said Wesley. “Who you were. Why you were following her. I was worried someone else was working on my story. But you never approached her.”
Natalie’s temperature was rising and Wesley’s face was starting to blur around the edges. She couldn’t let this man ruin everything. Natalie’s fingers curled up into fists.
“You spend so much time watching her.” He leaned forward into her space. “Why are you following Marin Haggerty?”
Marin Haggerty. Natalie didn’t know Marin Haggerty. Marin Haggerty didn’t exist.