Chapter 25
RILEY
Loraine’s kitchen is the exact opposite of the one in the safehouse, which was spartan and functional.
This room is also relatively small, but in a warm, cluttered way.
Floral potholders hang from hooks next to the stove.
A spice rack holds jars with handwritten labels.
Photos on the fridge—Loraine and Howard in front of a Christmas tree, Loraine in a nurse’s uniform, Howard with a caught fish larger than his torso.
And in between, almost hidden behind a grocery list, a small, faded photo of a baby with red fuzz on its head.
I stare at the photo while Loraine makes sandwiches. Turkey, cheese, mustard on white bread she baked herself. Her hands work with the automatic efficiency of a woman who has cared for others for thirty years.
“That’s you,” she says softly, following my gaze. “Three weeks old. The only thing we were allowed to keep.”
I swallow hard. “I had hair?”
“Heaps of it. The nurses at the hospital laughed and said they’d never seen a baby with so much hair.” Loraine’s voice turns brittle. “Red as a sunset, Howard said.”
Howard sits at the table next to Vaughn. Over the last twenty minutes, the two have formed a kind of silent pact—Howard asks no questions about my involuntary time in the desert, and Vaughn asks no questions about the adoption. Why should he? He knows the background better than I do.
Instead, they talk about safe things: the weather in Oregon, the wooden bench in front of the house that Howard built himself, the leaky roof of the garden shed he’s been meaning to fix for two years.
Man-talk. Superficial, practical, full of unspoken things.
But it works. Vaughn listens, nods in the right places, and eats his sandwich with a politeness I’ve never seen from him.
He sits upright, elbows off the table, and says thank you when Loraine refills his cup.
Vaughn Mercer is behaving as if someone flipped a switch.
At one point, he gets up to bring two sandwiches to Valentino in the car. When he returns, he joins us again.
“Your friend in the car,” Howard says. “Doesn't he want to come in?”
“Valentino prefers his privacy,” Vaughn says. “But he asked me to tell you the sandwiches are excellent.”
Howard nods as if that were the most normal thing in the world. A kidnapper, his hostage, and an Italian getaway driver eating turkey sandwiches in a suburban kitchen in Oregon. My life is a novel no one would believe.
The conversation evolves. Cautious at first, like people walking on thin ice. Then more open, as everyone realizes the ice is holding.
Loraine tells the story of the night she gave me away. Her voice is so calm it hurts—the calm of a woman who has gone over this story in her head so many times that the words have been smoothed down like pebbles in a river.
“We had no choice,” she says. Her hands lie flat on the table as if she needs to steady herself.
“The debt was crushing. We tried everything—Howard worked three jobs at once, I took night shifts at the hospital.
But it wasn't enough. And then this man came, this Blackstone, and said he could make it all disappear. The debt, the threats, the eviction notices. Everything. If we gave him the child.”
“Mom.” The word slips out before I can stop it. Loraine’s eyes widen. Her lower lip trembles. It’s the first time I’ve called her that. “You don't have to justify it.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You don't understand. You can't understand how it feels to place your baby in a stranger’s arms and know you’ll never see her again. We cried. For weeks. For months. Howard hardly spoke a word for a year.”
I look at my father. The large, broad-shouldered man sits slumped in his chair. His blue eyes are wet.
“That was the condition,” he says. His voice is deep and gravelly.
“Blackstone wanted us to disappear. Far away from Vegas. No contact, no investigating, no attempts to find you. If we broke that rule, he said, everything would come back. The debt, the threats. Everything.” He clenches his fists on the table.
“That’s why Oregon,” I say.
“That’s why Oregon,” Loraine confirms. “As far away as possible. A new city, new jobs, a new life. But no new child.” Her voice breaks. “We couldn't. The thought of holding another baby and thinking of you—it was impossible.”
Vaughn sits next to Howard and says nothing. But I see his hand clenched into a fist under the table. He knows this story. It’s a different version of the story that destroyed his own parents.
Richard Blackstone doesn't just build his empire on money. He builds it on broken families, on the fates of other people he doesn't care about.
“I’m not angry with you,” I say. And I mean it.
Not because I’m such a good person, but because the anger I feel is directed at the man sitting in a casino in Las Vegas, believing people are worth nothing.
“I know he manipulated you. Like he manipulated everyone around him. Like he manipulated me for twenty-seven years.”
Loraine reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her fingers are warm and rough from work. Nurse’s hands.
“What do you plan to do now?” Howard asks.
That’s the big question I honestly can't answer.
I look around the kitchen. At the floral potholders, the spice rack, the baby photo on the fridge. At Loraine holding my hand. At Howard looking at me as if he’s afraid I might vanish again. At Vaughn, sitting quietly at the table, waiting for what I’ll say.
“I don't know yet,” I say truthfully. “I want to live my own life. For the first time. Without someone dictating where I go, who I meet, what I do.” I squeeze Loraine’s hand. “I want to get to know you. Truly. Not in one night, but over months, years. I want to know where I come from.”
Loraine nods. Tears run down her cheeks, but she’s smiling.
“And Richard?” Howard asks.
“I’ll talk to him again,” I say. “He was part of my life for a long time. He raised me, even if it was all based on a lie. I can't just cut that off as if it never existed.” I pause. “But he has no right to control me anymore.”
We talk for a long time. About everything and nothing.
Loraine tells me how she became a nurse, how Howard got the janitor job at the school, how they go fishing on the Willamette River on weekends.
I tell them about my server room, my hoodies, about Pixel the cat who was only allowed to stay for a week.
Howard laughs and says they have a cat of their own—a fat orange tabby named Marvin who is sleeping somewhere in the house and isn't interested in visitors.
When it gets late, Loraine shows us the garden shed. A small wooden structure behind the house, one door, one window, a sofa bed that takes up almost the entire space.
“It’s not much,” she says apologetically.
“It’s perfect,” I say.
I hug her one last time, then Vaughn and I go into the shed.
The door closes behind us.