Chapter 56
CHAPTER 56
PEN
I t takes all my willpower not to slam the bedroom door. I know and understand Elijah is panicking. I am too. Lottie is missing, God only knows where.
I lean against the wall outside the room and close my eyes, inhaling deeply, trying to calm my racing heart. I hate conflict, but I will not be used as a scapegoat for the bitch he married. The years of having to put up with her snide comments and bitchiness are well and truly over.
I head into the kitchen and flick on the coffee machine.
“Where are you, baby girl?” I say to the air as I make my way to Lottie’s bedroom.
The silence inside is deafening.
Why the hell didn’t I mention our conversation to Elijah? If I had… maybe…
No point in thinking what-ifs . It’s now a case of tracking her down and we will. Heaven only knows what she’s got herself involved in. Has she actually worked out who her biological father is?
I move to her desk and look through her drawers.
Like her father, Lottie is organised, and her drawers are neat and tidy. Everything has a place. I pick up a stack of papers and flick through them. Homework, some sketches.
I stand in the centre of the room and look around.
Shit, come on, Lottie, give me a clue.
I move to her bed and drop to the floor, checking underneath it. Again, nothing.
What teenage girl doesn’t stuff her dirty clothes under her bed? Lottie Frazer, you need corrupting.
I can hear her chuckling at my comments.
I shuffle across the floor on my knees, moving to her bedside drawer.
A couple of steamy romance novels whose titles I recognise. A few photographs of her and her friends, a notebook. I flick through the pages, but again, nothing. A few story ideas, but no big reveal.
I stand, placing my hands on my hips.
If I was a teenage girl, where would I hide my secrets?
I come up blank. Mine were always locked in private files on my computer.
I look back at the desk. Lottie’s laptop is missing. I presume she has it with her.
Damn!
I move to her ensuite.
Nothing, not even her bin has anything in it. Chrissy must have emptied it.
Damn.
Elijah appears behind me.
“What are you doing?”
I turn and look at him. His face echoing the strain I know he’s feeling. He looks like he’s aged ten years. The stress lines around his eyes and mouth are deep.
“I’m looking for clues. If Lottie has found out who her biological father is, I was hoping she may have left evidence. Instead, I find my goddaughter is a neat freak.”
“She isn’t normally,” Elijah says.
“Then why is her room so tidy?”
“Probably because she hasn’t been back long enough to turn it into its usual tip.”
I move to her desk drawers and open them, showing him the neat and organised space.
He frowns.
“All her draws are like this. Is there a space where she might not have cleared up after herself?”
I’m realising my goddaughter is a smart cookie. She’s cleared up so no one could stumble across her plans.
“No,” Elijah says, rubbing his forehead.
“Where’s her artwork? She was going to show it to me. We just never got time.”
Elijah freezes.
I incline my head.
“Where’s her artwork, Eli?”
He turns on his heel, and I follow behind him. He leads me upstairs, pausing outside a door with a security keypad.
A lot of security for a storeroom.
He turns to me and opens and closes his mouth.
“Pen, look. What I said earlier?—”
I hold up a hand. “Let’s just concentrate on finding Lottie. She’s all that matters right now.”
Without another word, he enters a code and pushes the door open.
It’s the smell that hits me first. Oil paint and turps.
Canvases line two walls. Not just a single canvas but hundreds.
“Holy shit,” I say, moving further into the room. “Are these all Lottie’s?”
I turn to face Elijah, who’s stood awkwardly in the doorway.
“No,” he says, running a hand through his hair, his eyes not quite meeting mine. “Most of them are mine.”
If he came over and shoved me, I could not be more surprised.
“Yours? I…”
I turn around and move towards the wall. There must be hundreds of paintings stacked up. Not just doodles but amazing paintings.
I spin to face him. “But—I.”
“Remember that little paint-by-numbers set you bought me?”
My jaw drops.
“These are a little more than paint-by-numbers, Eli,” I say, turning back to the paintings lining the walls.
These are good, I mean really good. Elijah is an artist and a talented one. Somehow, I’m less surprised than I should be.
He chuckles. “Just a little.”
“Well, don’t think you’re getting away with this,” I say to him. “I need to know more, but now we need to concentrate on finding Lottie.”
“Her paintings are over here,” he says, moving towards the corner where there’s a separate setup. “She prefers watercolours.”
I stare at the artwork. Lottie, like her dad, clearly has a talent for art. No wonder she went to art school over the summer. This needs to be nurtured. I think back to the stick painting of Lottie’s I still have on my refrigerator.
“She’s good,” I say.
I may not be an artist myself, but I am an art aesthete.
“She is.” I can hear the pride in his voice.
I move to the desk, nowhere near as neat as her bedroom. This time, the bin under the table is full. I pull it out and place it on the table bench.
Bingo
I stare at the contents in front of me.
“No way,” I mumble. “You clever girl.”
Lottie is smarter than I realised. A sense of pride sits in my chest, although I’m going to strangle her for what she’s doing to her dad.
“What?” Elijah joins me.
In the bin are seven wine glasses. Each holding a sticker. Jaxson, Zach, Quentin, Xander, Marcus, Tristan, Dad.
The little minx. No wonder she was so keen to help with the clearing up. My mind darts back to how she was happy to return everyone’s used glasses to the kitchen at the end of the night.
If I wasn’t currently so mad at my goddaughter, I’d be impressed with her resourcefulness.
Elijah looks at me.
“She’s run DNA tests?”
“At least we know what she’s doing and potentially where she’s gone,” I tell him, although I notice he’s gone slightly green around the gills.
Not surprising.
It’s one thing to know your daughter isn’t biologically yours, but another thing to find out one of your friends potentially knew and did the dirty with your ex.
I turn to Elijah and squeeze his arm.
“A positive. If she’s found one of these men is her biological father, at least we know she’s not in any danger.”
No one on her list would hurt a hair on her head. They’re all like family. The question now is, which one carries her DNA, and did they know it?
Elijah and I rummage through the rest of the papers but find no sign of the test results.
The doorbell goes, snapping us out of our trance.
We head back downstairs.
Elijah heads to the door, looking back as he reaches it.
“Pen, what you saw upstairs…”
“Your secret is safe,” I tell him. “It’s not like I don’t carry a tonne of my own.”
Elijah nods and opens the door.
Caleb and Gabriel enter together.
“We left April and Leah at home, just in case Lottie shows up there. We’ve promised to keep them informed.”
Elijah nods. “Thank you,” he says. “Good thinking, especially after last time.”
It’s Gabriel who nods while Caleb looks between his two brothers. He shoots me a glance, which I acknowledge. He nods but doesn’t press, clearly knowing all will be revealed shortly.
The door goes again, and Kat enters.
“Harper is going to stay at uni in case Lottie shows up there. Mum is also going to stay at home. I’ve spoken to the concierge at my apartment. If Lottie shows up, the staff have me on speed dial, and someone will stay with her until we get there.”
Elijah nods and motions for everyone to sit down. I open his laptop and call the two absent Frazer members. Both answer on the second ring.
“Any news?” Franny says, her usual pitch elevated.
“Nothing yet. However, we have some news.”
“Has she been kidnapped?” Harper says, her voice shaking. “Please tell me she hasn’t been kidnapped.”
There is no mistaking the panic in Harper’s voice.
“No, nothing like that. Or at least we haven’t received a ransom note,” I say, stepping in for Elijah.
I look at him, his face has gone white, his hands shaking. Gabriel moves next to him and grasps his shoulders.
“Come on. You’ve got this,” he says, giving him a quick shake. “No one is going to care. They love you and Lottie. That will never change.”
Elijah nods, although his spark is extinguished.
“Elijah?” I say, turning to him. I swallow when he looks at me with dead eyes.
“Pen, what the hell is going on?” Caleb says.
I look at Elijah once more, but he has sunk to the sofa.
“We think Lottie is trying to track down her biological father,” I say.
“Her what?!” Caleb blurts out
His eyes flash between me and Elijah.
There’s a silent pause before the room erupts, everyone talking over each other. I look up to see Franny looking on. She stares at me.
Oh fuck, she’s known all along?
“Enough!” I shout over the noise. “This is not helping.”
Everyone stops, their gazes moving to Elijah.
“There’s a list of people she tested,” he says. “We think she…”
His voice trails off.
“Who?” Caleb asks, stepping forward. “Who has she tested? I don’t understand?”
“Everyone who was there that Christmas and New Year. It looks like one of those names is positive.”
Caleb looks confused until the realisation dawns. I watch his throat bob as he swallows.
“You mean?” he says, his tanned skin having gone deadly pale.
He looks at me, and I nod.
“Can you call them, ask them if Lottie is with them? No blame, we just need to know she’s safe.”
He nods, knowing exactly who I mean.
He leaves the room, his phone in hand.
I turn and find Elijah staring at his mother on the screen.
“You don’t seem surprised, Mum,” he says, his voice devoid of all emotion.
She shakes her head sadly. “No.”
“How long have you known?”
“I had my suspicions from the beginning. They were confirmed when you found out.”
“And you didn’t think to say anything?”
“What was the point? Lottie is your daughter, my granddaughter. I’ve never cared about biology. She is ours, always has been and always will be.”
Elijah’s face hardens. “You don’t think me knowing would have helped?”
“No, you would have felt you needed to leave Darra if I’d said anything. Your pride would have kicked in, and Darra would have taken Lottie. That was not a risk your father or I would take.”
My eyes well at Franny’s words, knowing she means every syllable. She practically adopted me as a daughter. Invited me into her family. She tried the same with Darra, although she never appreciated what she was being offered. I wonder now whether it was guilt, knowing that Lottie wasn’t theirs, that kept Darra from accepting their love.
I turn to find Kat staring at the floor, not saying a word. She looks up as if sensing my gaze. Her eyes are filled with the level of pain I’ve only ever seen when her father died.
I shake my head, but her eyes tell me I’m wrong. It becomes crystal clear where her dislike for Jaxson stems.
Does she think it’s him?
Surely she can’t believe that about him?
No way.
Out of everyone, Jaxson would never have done that to Elijah. He would have cut off his right arm for his friend. He certainly wouldn’t have slept with his girlfriend. He didn’t even like Darra. And he definitely wouldn’t have let her trap Elijah into marriage if he knew.
Jax was as horrified as I was when Elijah proposed. My mind and body rebel against the thought.
But then, was it all a ruse? Do you ever really know anyone?