Chapter Nine #2
The resemblance shouldn't have been a surprise, considering it was the reason for William Davis' obsession with Lise, the reason he'd stalked her relentlessly until he'd died in his last attempt to claim her.
In the photograph, Anna was laughing, blue eyes bright, hair gleaming platinum in the sun.
I slid that picture to the bottom of the pile and looked at the next.
My heart clutched to see Anna, heavily pregnant in a hideous flowered smock of a dress, sitting on a porch swing beside a man who could only be James Winters.
There was an engagement ring on a chain around her neck. I could guess her fingers were too swollen from pregnancy to wear it yet.
He looked at her with such tenderness. In her eyes, I saw love, but also fear. Hesitation. Uncertainty.
Emotion swamped me, too much at once. Envy and pity and anger, and a deep, wrenching, horrible sense of loss for these people who should have been mine and were gone.
Her children, her real children, needed to see these pictures.
Methodically, I replaced the photographs, then the letters—except for the one in my pocket—back in the box and closed the lid. Pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes, I forced my roiling emotions under control.
The Winters family was so eager to reach out, to bring me into the fold, and I knew if they sensed the slightest bit of weakness on my part they would be all over it. Asking me to talk. Wanting me to tell them how I felt.
It was nice to know they cared, but these feelings were mine. Until I figured them out, I didn't even want to share them with Vivi. I didn't want to be fixed or reassured. I had to work through it myself. I closed the secret compartment and replaced the books.
In the main library, Vivi stood at the top of a ladder, Aiden at the base, arms crossed over his chest, glowering up at her. She was laughing, and I caught the tail end of what she'd been saying.
"…worried. You'll catch me,"
"Not if you land on my head," Aiden said sardonically. His eyes caught mine as I passed through the open door and immediately sharpened. "Chase, what do you have there?"
Taking a deep breath, I said, "I found one of the secret compartments. You're going to want to see this."
Silence fell over the room. Vivi started down the ladder so quickly Aiden reached out to steady her, and with a look of exasperation, closed his hands around her hips and lifted her off before she could slip.
Amelia was comfortably ensconced on the couch, a blanket over her lap despite the warmth of late summer. She reached out her hands and said, "Come on then, give it here!"
I didn't move. Belatedly, I noticed that not only was Gage here, so was Vance, his two and a half-year-old daughter sitting comfortably on his hip. I knew the secret compartment search was Amelia's pet project, but this box, these letters and pictures, belonged to Anna's children.
I crossed the room and held out the box to Gage. His dark blue eyes were wary as he took it from my hands. Without a word, Vance handed Rosie off to Sophie and turned his full attention to me.
"What did you find?" he asked evenly.
I started to speak, and the words caught in my throat in an embarrassing squawk. Clearing it, I tried again. "Letters. Letters from your father to your mother." Vance's eyes squinted at me and I corrected, "To Anna."
He wanted me to call her my mother, too.
I couldn't. She wasn't my mother. For better or worse, Suzanne Westbrook was my mother.
She had her faults. A lot of them. Starting with her belief that hugs made for unruly children and ending when she kicked me out for getting a tattoo and a motorcycle, despite the fact that I'd paid for them myself, had good grades, and mostly stayed out of trouble.
I wasn't a perfect child, so I was gone.
Even so, she was my mother.
She'd nursed me through the flu, given me a safe home and a full belly. Made sure I had a top-notch education. She'd given me Vivi, the most reliable source of love and affection in my life.
I knew from everything they'd said that Anna Winters had been a wonderful mother. But she wasn't my mother. She'd made her choice, and maybe after I read that letter to James a few thousand times, I would understand it better.
I knew what it was to have dreams. To want something so badly you'd do anything to have it.
I'd made my dreams come true, and I’d had a far easier path than Anna Marlow.
I’d been on my own after my parents cut me off, but I’d had scholarships and a part-time job to smooth the way.
I’d worked my ass off for years, but that wasn’t the same as being an unwed mother who dreamed of medical school and a career as a doctor.
Making my dreams come true had required dedication. Hard work. Creativity. For Anna, it had required all of that and more. Sacrifice. Pain. She’d made choices no young woman should have to face. I could imagine what she’d been through, but I didn’t really know.
I was well aware she could have chosen to end the pregnancy. It might've been difficult back then, but Anna had connections. I had no doubt if James had put a word in the right ear, Anna could have solved the problem easily enough without even leaving school.
She hadn't done that. She'd chosen to give me life.
I appreciated it. Obviously. It still didn't make her my mom.
Before Vance or Gage could say anything, I went on, "There are pictures.
Of her when she was pregnant with me—" My voice caught a little, but I pushed through, "Of her with your father.
You'll want to see them. If Lise is at her house—"
"I'll call her," Vance said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. With a look at Aiden, "We never gave Chase the other box."
"What other box?" Vivi asked, looking between Aiden, Gage, and Vance.
Sophie was so focused on Rosie, I knew that while she hadn't missed a word, she had no interest in jumping into the conversation. More worrisome, Aunt Amelia was uncharacteristically quiet, and she wouldn't meet my eyes.
Looking between Vivi and me, Aiden said gently, "The box of letters from William Davis to Anna. We found them when Davis broke into the house, opened the first compartment, and tried to steal them. We put them back in the box and set them aside. They should go to Chase."
Great. Letters from my sociopathic sperm donor to the mother who'd given me up. Just the kind of nighttime reading I was looking for. Forget a good techno-thriller. Let's read through years of obsession that resulted in four deaths.
Vivi knew what I was thinking because those lavender eyes went dark as they met mine. "Maybe they belong to you, but you don't have to read them. You don't. There's nothing you need to know about William Davis except that he's dead. He was crazy and he's dead. He has nothing to do with you."
She was right, and she was wrong.
I wouldn't exist without William Davis. And I wasn't one to hide from my problems. I could pretend he didn't exist, but that didn't erase the past. It didn't change the blood running in my veins. Maybe it was time I learned exactly how crazy he'd been.
I shrugged a shoulder, trying for nonchalance I knew I didn't pull off. Proving again that they were good people, everyone in the room let me get away with it.
"Vivi, it's okay. I'll take the letters. Doesn't mean I have to read them right away. It's not that big a deal. I didn't even know him."
Vivi wasn't buying it either, but she let it go.
Aiden gave Vivi’s hand a squeeze and crossed the room. He knelt in the corner of the room, reaching deep into an empty shelf and removing a wooden box.
He handed it to me.
I eyed it the same way I might a grenade missing its pin. If I could have figured out a way to leave without touching that thing, that innocuous box that held my legacy of pain and evil, I would have.
Fuck my male pride, part of me wanted to take off running if it would let me avoid facing what was in that box.
The ravings of a madman, one who had been smart enough, clever enough, to hide his madness for a lifetime.
I couldn't bring myself to do it. When had I ever run from anything?
William Davis was dead. He couldn’t hurt me now.
How wrong I was. I’d lived long enough to know the past can always reach out to cause pain.
The wooden box was cool in my hands. The moment I took its weight, I knew I couldn’t stay in that room, in that house, a second longer.
Making some excuse, shutting out the sounds of my name called behind me, I took off, the tight band of panic around my chest only easing when I cleared the gates of Winters House and drove away.