Chapter Forty-One
Fox
We were driving back from Balgray. Finding a hidden exit had made us both feel better about the approaching showdown—although Haze seemed to get even more joy from discovering that an Instagram stranger was living a lie.
She was singing along to a Gracie Abrams song.
What she lacked in tuning, she made up for in sass. Reggie was fast asleep in his car seat.
Mike had asked me to meet him tomorrow.
It was now or never.
“I’m driving the car, so if you hit me, it will be dangerous.” I kept staring at the highway. “And our baby son is in the back of the car.”
“What are you talking about?” Haze spun round to look at me. “What have you done?”
I needed to say it fast. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“I sent one of your hairs to Find My Heritage, and it matched you with your father. I’ve been talking to him.
He never knew about you. He’s called Mike Martin.
Seventy-four. Lives in Scotland. Married.
No children.” I stumbled. “No other children. Seems a very nice man. He’s in Berkshire tomorrow and wants to meet you.
” I clenched the steering wheel and risked a look at her.
Her face had paled. “You found my father.”
“Because I love you! It’s about love. I just wanted to help.” She kept staring straight ahead. A beat of silence. Then another. It was worse than shouting. “Please understand, I—”
“What does he do?” Her voice was quiet and level.
“He’s a retired accountant.”
She frowned. “That sounds ridiculous.”
“It’s quite a normal career path, I think.”
“How can I have an accountant’s genes?”
This was going better than I’d expected. “So, do you want to meet him?”
She remained silent.
“I know we’ve got a lot on at the moment, but he lives on this Scottish island that’s a real pain to get to, and he’s not sure when he’ll next be over this way.”
I handed her my phone and let her look through my messages with Mike.
“Harriet? Harriet Smith? Really?” She scrolled down and came across a conversation about hobbies. “I like cooking and long walks in the park? Jesus. Couldn’t you do a better job of being me?!” She zoomed in on the photos of him. “What about the timing? Don’t you think—”
“I logged you on the system a while ago. Mike only joined a few months back.”
“You kept it from me for this long?” Her eyes flashed as she turned to me.
“I wanted to make sure he was worth knowing!” I kept talking.
Listing everything I knew about Mike, the research I’d done online, the Facebook account that showed charming photos of him visiting nice gardens with his wife, a ruddy-faced woman with a warm smile.
A large fish he’d caught on a fishing trip with some other gray-haired men.
How he steered away from politics and always posted links to his friends’ Just Giving fundraisers for marathons or fun runs they were doing.
Haze listened to all of this silently.
I stopped to draw breath.
“He doesn’t sound anything like me!”
“Little one, no one is like you!”
Haze was staring ahead now, chewing on her lip. “What did we say about secrets? We shouldn’t have any!”
“I know! I agree. Absolutely. But this was only a temporary secret until I knew he was worth knowing.” I took our turn off the highway and looked over at her. “Are you telling me you don’t have a single secret from me?”
Haze was silent.
“Haze?”
She sighed. “Bibi saw me covered in blood in the utility room after I’d killed Clark.”
My mouth dropped open.
“And she was drawing pictures of me covered in blood at school. Her teacher was worried. But I’ve sorted it. Told him it was about my period. I’ve talked to Bibi, and she’s not traumatized—and she’s not drawing any more pictures. Everything is fine.”
I was struggling to hold it together. Our precious Bibi had seen Haze post-kill? How much therapy was she going to need?
“Don’t you think—”
Haze cut me off. “Isn’t stealing someone’s DNA a crime?”
I felt we were going to call a truce on the being upfront with each other issue.
We drove the rest of the way home in silence.
—
The next morning, Haze seemed calm. I wasn’t sure she wasn’t in shock.
She’d texted Mike when we’d got home yesterday, and had arranged to meet him at 10 a.m. on the high street.
We’d decided she would go alone, but that Jenny and I would be at home waiting for her to get back, ready to jump in the car for moral support if needed.
I sent her off with two coffees and a hug. She looked a bit of a mess, for her. Perhaps she hadn’t slept well.
Jenny arrived just as she was leaving. Another hug and more wishes of good luck, and Haze was on her way.
“This is a big moment!” Jenny said, turning to me. “I can’t believe you found him! And that she actually wanted to meet him.”
I was feeling good. It was like I knew what Haze needed better than she did. She never would’ve tried to find her father. She hadn’t wanted to even think about him. But I’d done it for her. I’d taken the decision away from her.
Jenny took a sip of tea as we settled down to wait for Haze. “What checks did you do on him?”
“Online ones. Enough to confirm he was who he said he was.”
“Great. Always good to be careful. What kinds of things?”
“His Facebook profile. Google searches. And then there’s the emails and texts. He gave me a lot of detail on his life. I verified it with company websites.”
“Reverse image search?”
“Yes! I did that. Didn’t turn up anything I hadn’t found already.”
“And the fake photo doctor?”
“The what?”
“You know, that software that checks if an image has been manipulated using AI or by distorting existing images to show what you want?”
“I…I hadn’t heard of that.”
Jenny chewed on her lip. “Bad people have you on their radar. There’s no telling what they’d do to mess with you.”
“Right.” I stared at my coffee mug. The good feeling was fast evaporating. “As we’re waiting, you might as well, you know, run the images through that photo doctor thing?”
Jenny was already opening her laptop. She tapped a few buttons. “Is this his Facebook profile?” She showed me the screen.
“That’s it.”
“It’ll just take a few minutes.”
I was starting to feel a little sick.