Chapter Twenty-Nine Ren
“Wonder if Max’ll start this morning.”
Ren looked up at the sound of Edward’s voice, finding his eyes already searching her face with concern. Only now did she realize how tense she’d been, how she’d barely spoken or looked up all morning. Her voice came out scratchy: “He’s the best boy and will start right up.”
And, oh. Now that she was looking, she noticed how good Edward looked. She’d been so in her head she hadn’t realized he was wearing a hunter-green T-shirt that made his brown eyes seem hazel, that he’d combed his hair off his forehead and looked so polished and grown-up. She hadn’t taken a moment today to relish the thought that this man was her boyfriend. Her anxiety had become a physical brick in her stomach, not leaving room for anything else.
“How’re we doing?” he asked, bending to meet her eyes. She wondered if anyone else at Corona knew how gentle he could be.
“I’m okay.”
He seemed understandably skeptical. “You sure? You’re a little pale. Want something to eat before we hit the road?”
The thought of food made her stomach lurch. “I think I just want to get there.”
He smoothed her hair back, tucking a strand behind her ear. “Okay, you’re the boss today.”
“I still don’t know what to say,” she admitted, leaning back against the passenger door. “Do I just walk up to his door and say, ‘Hi, are you by chance missing a daughter’?”
“It’s not the worst idea.” Edward smiled and then bent in, giving her a long, lingering kiss. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
He rounded the front of the car, giving Max an encouraging little pat on the hood as he passed. The second Edward turned the key in the ignition, Max roared to life.
Last Tuesday felt like a lifetime ago, but it had been only seven days. Ren remembered waiting at the curb for Fitz to show up, feeling nervous and guilty and queasy from the enormous lie she was about to tell her parents. She imagined having the entire trip to think about what she would do on Christopher Koning’s doorstep, what she would say. She thought she’d have time to mentally and emotionally prepare to hear that there was no way she was his daughter, or—even more world rocking—to hear that she was.
But instead of focusing on finding her father, the trip had become less about what she had ahead and more about what was right in front of her: Edward Fitzsimmons. What started so rocky and contentious had melted into comfort and passion and honesty. It was overwhelming, the way her heart was discovering love at the same time her mind was contemplating the possibility that her entire life had been built on a lie.
“I’m so glad you drove me down,” she told him. “I’d be so nervous alone.”
He glanced away from the road, smiling. “Me too. I’d be useless today if I was up there and you were down here without a phone.”
A phone. It hadn’t even occurred to her that if they were separated for any reason, she’d have no way of getting in touch with him. They’d ditched the burner from the Screaming Eagle bounty; Fitz explained it could have been used for all kinds of illegal things, so it now lived in a dumpster in Rapid City. The realization that Ren would probably need to buy one made a second bolt of awareness land, and she took a minute to piece the words together, staring out at the road ahead of them. “Would it hurt your feelings if I wanted to go up to his house by myself?”
“Of course it wouldn’t. You mean you want me to wait nearby, right?”
She considered this. As comfortable as she was with Edward, and as much as she knew she’d want to tell him everything about what happened, she wasn’t sure she wanted him there to witness it if she was turned away. Everything—even this—was too new. She knew she’d want to deal with it on her own first, even if she needed him nearby.
“I think it’d be better if you went and checked us into the hotel, and I called you when I was ready for you to come get me.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “You don’t have a phone, Sunshine.”
“I know, but you can give me your number. Even if he’s not my dad, he’d let me use his phone, don’t you think?”
“Let’s just go grab you a burner and come back.”
She shook her head. “I’m too nervous. I want to do this now. I’m sure I can use his phone.”
“I’d be more comfortable if you took mine.” He reached for the console and handed it to her before wrapping his hand around hers, squeezing. “I’ll call this line from the hotel and leave the number so you can call me when you’re ready.”
Ren was pretty sure she’d never be ready, but it didn’t matter, because they pulled up at the curb of the tree-lined street in Atlanta and it was right there, 1079 Birchwood Terrace. The house was blue, with white trim and a sunny yellow front door. The neighborhood was beautiful, with vibrant greenery and seductive, heavy buds bursting on every branch. It looked nothing like she’d been imagining from her years of reading Toni Morrison and Flannery O’Connor. But this was modern-day suburban Atlanta: Yards rolled down from beautiful homes to the sidewalks; flower beds were immaculate, bordering tidy verdant lawns. Trees lined the sidewalks, throwing soft shade over rooftops, their branch arms reaching for those of their cousins across the asphalt.
She could tell this was a neighborhood full of homes—not simply houses—where families met at a table at six sharp for dinner, where daughters learned to play catch with their dads and sons learned to ride bikes with a mom chasing after them, struggling to keep a steadying hand on the seat. It was so different from her own upbringing that she felt momentarily split down the middle, facing this alternative reality. She imagined playing in a yard like this, going to a real school, and being driven around in a shiny sedan instead of a rusty old pickup. She didn’t want to change how or where she was raised, but she hadn’t realized until she’d left how lonely she’d always been. Her only friends had been pigs and chickens, cats and cows.
Edward pulled a half a block farther down the street and parked at the curb. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
Ren gazed out the window, staring behind them. “I’m sure.”
“Look at me, Ren.”
She turned, and he leaned over, kissing her once. “I’ll call as soon as I’m at the hotel with the phone number and our room number so they can connect you. I’ll have them text it, too, just in case.” He reached over, silencing the ringer. “It won’t ring—I don’t want it to distract you—but it’ll vibrate when the voicemail is there. Okay? You know the passcode and how to get to my voicemail? My texts?” She nodded numbly, and he made her repeat the plan back to him.
“You’ll leave a message with the phone number for me to call,” she said, showing him that she knew where to access the voicemail on his phone. “You’ll tell me our room number so I can have them connect me.”
“Call me either way,” he said. “If you stay for dinner, call me. If you need a ride immediately, call me. Actually, as soon as you have a sense of how it’s going, call me. Just keep me updated. Please?”
“I will. Thank you.” She reached over the console, cupping his cheek, then took a deep breath before climbing out.
Edward called out to her. “Ren!”
She bent down, peeking back into the car to find him leaning across the console, staring up at her. “I…” His smile straightened, eyes searching hers. “I wanted to tell you…”
“Tell me what?” she asked.
Finally, he grinned, making a fist of solidarity. “You got this.”
“I’m going to take your word for it. I’ll see you soon.” With a weak smile, she waved, closed the passenger door, and waited with a strange sadness as he finally drove away.
Even the air smelled different here, thick with a sweetness she couldn’t immediately name until she saw the iconic white star flowers crawling up trellises and weaving through arches over doorways.
Jasmine.
She slipped Edward’s phone into her pocket, feeling comforted by the weight of it against her hip. She wanted to feel like herself today, so she’d dressed simply in cutoff denim shorts and a cropped T-shirt, her hair back in a smooth braid. It felt like they’d only driven ten seconds past the blue house with the yellow door, but the walk back seemed miles long. As she passed others—a yellow house with white trim; a white house with green trim; a green house with blue trim—she tried to imagine five-year-old Ren running across these lawns, eight-year-old Ren getting on a school bus, thirteen-year-old Ren sunbathing in one of the huge backyards. She was so lost in her own head, imagining her fictional life here and her actual life thousands of miles away, she swore she could almost hear Gloria’s voice.
“Ren.”
She froze on the sidewalk, awareness dawning that it wasn’t her imagination at all.
“Ren Gylden, you look at me right now.”
Ren spun slowly, heart plummeting into her stomach.
Gloria’s hair was jet-black and glossy when Ren was little, but it was gray now, salt-and-pepper curls she wore half up, half down, the long waves cascading to the middle of her back. She wasn’t wearing her good clothes that she’d normally wear for a trip into the city; she was in jeans and a button-down shirt, the same thing she’d wear to work their booth at the fair or make deliveries in town. Instead of gardening gloves and a big sun hat, she had a canvas purse over her shoulder and a pair of sunglasses on her face. Ren could see her own reflection in the lenses; she looked small and terrified.
Her worst nightmare had come true. Gloria had found out. Gloria was standing right in front of her in this sleepy Atlanta neighborhood. “What are you doing here?” Ren asked.
Gloria took her sunglasses off and dropped them inside her purse. She smiled with saccharine brightness. “Aw, sweetheart, I just came to ask you how midterms are going?”
“I promise, I can explain.”
Gloria’s expression snapped closed. “I don’t need an explanation. I know exactly what you’re doing here.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do, you silly girl.”
Sweat prickled at her scalp and at the back of her neck. Everything, everything was going wrong. Why did she let Edward leave? He would help her. He would know how to navigate this.
Ren tried to channel his easy confidence. “I’m actually fine handling this on my own.”
“On your own? Is that right?” Gloria batted Ren’s bravado away like a lion swatting at a buzzard. “Yesterday, I took an unplanned trip into town for supplies and Tammy had the TV on behind the register. You’ll never guess what I saw.”
“I don’t—I don’t know. What did you see?”
“Just you and some boy holding hands at a party in Nashville, Tennessee.”
Ren’s stomach dropped. She remembered the music, the dancing, the champagne. They’d been watching the protestors when Edward had abruptly suggested they move, distracting her with a kiss to the side of her head and a skewer of fried Oreos. World-weary Edward had seen the cameras and known the danger they presented. It had never occurred to Ren. If there was ever a sign she was destined to be caught, this was it. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh,’” Gloria mocked, and laughed harshly. “Tammy was so excited she took a photo of you on TV. She even printed me out a copy, and you better believe I used it to get that boy’s name. We got on the next plane.” Gloria saw them on TV in Nashville yet knew exactly where Ren was headed. Right down to the very street? Understanding was like a door kicked open. Ren snapped to attention at her mother’s voice: “Ask me how much I liked having to do that.”
“Gloria, you didn’t have to come for me. I would have come back. I promise.”
“You think after all the time and effort I put into raising you free of all this”—she gestured to the beautiful street around them—“I’m going to be fine with you hitting the road with some stranger and driving to Atlanta? I trusted you to go to that school, to hold true to the values we brought you up with, Ren. And the first time you’re away from home, you do this? Lesson learned.”
“Everything would be the way it was before! I just…” Ren took a deep breath and looked her mother in the eye. “I need to know the truth, and I worried that if I asked you, you wouldn’t let me go back to school.”
“The truth,” Gloria said, taking a step closer, her expression softening. “Ren, do you think that I would have kept something good from you? Do you think if there was something good for you to find here that I wouldn’t let you go? You think so little of me?”
“No, Gloria, I—”
“Did it not occur to you that I was trying to protect you?”
Ren paused, frowning. “Protect me from what?”
Gloria glanced at the house two more doors down and took a deep, shaky breath. “From a very bad man. Steve may not be your blood, but he’s the best father in the world to you and loves you like his own. He saved me from the hell of my first marriage.”
Confirmation of this felt like a knife in her side. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it didn’t matter,” she said. “You were so young, it didn’t matter that Steve wasn’t your biological father. We found a better place and made a better life, free of that man.” She tossed the last two words toward the house where the very bad man must have been.
“It’s a pretty place,” Gloria allowed when Ren’s gaze tracked down to the blue house with the white trim. “He was always very skilled at playing the part in public. Just know that dark things lurk behind these doors, Ren. You’re my only child, my baby girl, and it took a long time for me to get free of his clutches.”
Ren shivered, instinctively taking a step closer to Gloria and meeting her eyes. They were shiny, filled with unshed tears, and maybe a little afraid.
Ren had only seen her mother cry once, and it was when her favorite mare colicked and passed overnight.
“I didn’t know you were in a bad relationship before Steve,” Ren told her. “We never talk about that stuff.”
“For good reason.” Gloria reached down, taking Ren’s hand. “Please, baby girl, don’t bring him back into our lives again. I need you to trust me.”
Ren lowered herself to the curb and put her head in her hands. She knew now that her mother had been wrong about some things, but she loved Ren, wanted what was best for her.
“We have three tickets to fly back tonight,” Gloria said, rubbing Ren’s back.
“What about Edward?”
Gloria gaped at her. “Ren, you can’t be serious. I—I thought—” Gloria swallowed hard, frowning. “Please tell me that boy was just your ride out here.”
“It started that way,” Ren told her. “But it turned into more. He’s a good person, Gloria.”
“A good—” Gloria laughed, a single, harsh sound. “He’s a criminal, Ren. A con man.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. I guess we were both bound to make the same mistakes, get mixed up with the wrong kinds of men.” Gloria sat on the curb next to her. “Thank God I got here in time.”
“You don’t understand. He made some mistakes back when he was younger, but…He’s a scholarship student just like me.”
“So you know he’s not really that rich man’s kid?”
“I know. He told me everything.”
Gloria swallowed, gazing at her with part concern, part pity. “Everything? Did he tell you about the trouble he’s been in?”
Suddenly, Ren wasn’t sure. Edward had given her pieces of his life, like bread crumbs. Maybe he hadn’t told her everything yet. But no, Ren knew him. Lifting her chin, defensive heat flashed through Ren’s chest. “Yes, I know there’s a lot in his past, but he’s a good person.” He was, even if he didn’t always believe it. She met her mother’s eyes, willing her voice not to shake when she said, “He’s my boyfriend, and I trust him.”
“Well, then.” Gloria stared at her for a long beat and then blinked away, reaching into her purse and pulling out an envelope. “I’m glad to hear none of this will surprise you.”
Ren opened it, pulling the single sheet free. At the top was a photo of a younger Edward—scruffy, filthy, long haired, eyes wild. The fury in his gaze was disorienting.
It listed what she assumed was his legal name—Edward Pryce Fallon—his date of birth, and a few other numbers Ren assumed were record numbers in the Washington State Child Welfare system. Below all that was a list about fifteen lines long. She scanned it quickly:
9A.56.065………Theft of a motor vehicle
9A.56.068………Possession of a stolen vehicle
9A.56.330………Possession of another’s identification
9A.56.340………Theft with the intent to resell
9A.56.310………Possessing a stolen firearm
9A.56.346………Robbery in the first degree
There was more, but Ren stopped, a quiet moan escaping. “This isn’t right. This can’t be—How did you…”
Her heart thundering, Ren thought back to their conversation in the lake, both naked, both vulnerable. He’d been trying to tell her something, had started by saying he’d done bad things, and she’d asked him if he’d ever been in trouble with the police, fully expecting him to say no. But what had he said? He’d looked in her eyes and said—
Define trouble.
Ren’s heart sank. He hadn’t admitted to anything, but only because she hadn’t asked the right questions. He knew Ren wanted to see the best in him, and he let her.
“It’s him, Ren.” Gloria put her arm around Ren’s shoulders. “Baby, it’s him. Men like him are good at fooling women like us. Of taking advantage.”
Ren felt like she might throw up. The father she came here to find had been an abusive husband, and the boy she’d fallen for was a criminal.
She turned Ren to face her, expression soft as she read Ren’s silent spiral. “Now, you listen to me. You can’t blame yourself for this. This is just what I did—met a boy, fell in love in a matter of days. You’re human. But this boy is bad news. He’s a criminal and knows how to tell you what you want to hear, how to get you to trust him. Look at that rap sheet. Robbery? Possession of a stolen firearm? This boy didn’t just steal a pack of gum. Who knows what he would have done to you. Or us.”
Ren didn’t know what to think. She’d assumed Edward had been a foolish kid and his troubles were over something trivial, not something dangerous. Certainly not something involving a firearm. How did she not see this coming? Ren hadn’t learned an ounce of judgment in her time away from the homestead. She was just as naive and ignorant as ever.
Reeling, she remembered the Polaroid. He’d been cheating. She’d caught him cheating, and somehow, over the past few days, she allowed herself to forget all about it. Miriam had warned Ren that very first day, hadn’t she? She was right; everyone was right. Edward was Fitz, and Fitz was a liar.
“You didn’t tell him anything about us, now, did you?” Gloria asked gently. “Nothing about where we live? We don’t want him to find us.”
Ren thought back. “Maybe I mentioned the five-and-dime,” she admitted. “I think I told him about Corey Cove.”
Gloria took a long, deep breath. “All right. Thank you for your honesty.”
Ren leaned into her mother’s arms. “I feel so stupid.”
“None of that.” Gloria helped her up and turned them toward a small blue rental car parked down the street. “Let’s go pick up your dad and get you home.”