Chapter 53 Nico
NICO
When dawn came, I began to wonder if we’d made a mistake in waiting to go to visit the address Luis had given us.
I knew I’d barely slept the whole night, and judging by all the tossing and turning Maddy had done, she probably hadn’t fared any better.
Both of us seemed groggy and acted like zombies as we got up and started getting ready.
Maddy and I went about mundane things like brushing our teeth and trying to eat, though all we managed was a couple of handfuls of granola from the pantry.
Maddy moved around the house at a manic pace.
I could tell she was on the verge of a freakout.
I tried to see things from her perspective but realized pretty quickly that there was no way I could.
The situation was one I could never imagine.
Anything I said would sound either trite or asinine.
Instead of dealing with it, I packed our bags and put them in the car. After I had it all secured, I went back inside. Maddy was sitting on the couch, bouncing her heels and fidgeting with her fingers, staring off into space.
I waved a hand in front of her eyes. “Are we good?”
Maddy blinked in surprise. “Huh? Yeah. All good.”
Sighing, I sat next to her. “Seriously? Because it seems like that isn’t exactly true. It’s okay to be anxious.”
“Shit.” Maddy huffed the word out and stood, pacing the room. “It’s… I don’t know. What if we do find her? What should I say? What should I do? Do I shake her hand or hug her or what? What if she wants to kiss me on the cheek or something? I have no idea what to do here, Nico.”
I put my hands on her shoulders, stopping her pacing. “That’s why I’m here. If it gets too much, I can take over and do all the talking. It’ll be fine.”
Maddy sagged under my hands. “I hope you’re right.”
We went through the house one more time, making sure all the lights were off.
Maddy stopped in the doorway of her parents’ room and looked in.
She stood there for several seconds, gazing around the room.
I let her be, knowing she was taking one last look.
I assumed she was soaking it all in. If we were unsuccessful, then this would be the last time she was in that house when her parents were still alive.
The next time we were here, it would either be a family get-together or to prepare for a funeral.
The thought was morbid, but I had to be mentally prepared.
I had every intention of getting everyone back alive and in one piece, but fate sometimes had a way of fucking over even the best plans.
I prayed I wouldn’t have to see that happen.
I wasn’t sure how Maddy would handle it, but I could guarantee it would be heartbreaking to watch.
She turned away from the bedroom and looked at me. “Ready.”
I nodded and led her to the front door, locking it behind us as we left. Once we were in the car and pulling away, she gave one last look at the house before settling in for the trip. I put a hand on her thigh. “It shouldn’t take long.”
Maddy nodded but didn’t say anything. The address Luis had given us was for a place about twenty minutes from the house.
We drove the entire distance in silence.
It was just before ten in the morning when we reached the address.
Maddy and I both stared at the place and wondered if Luis had given us the right address.
Most of the houses in the neighborhood were well kept and appeared to be actively lived in.
The house we were looking at had the distinctive look of abandonment.
The paint on the porch handrails were peeling, and the siding was faded and broken in a couple of places.
On the roof, I could see at least four missing shingles, and the yard was overgrown.
Weeds had run rampant through the beds, and the gutters were overflowing with old leaves and pine needles.
“Do you think she had to run?” Maddy asked. I couldn’t tell if she sounded disappointed or dejected.
“Not sure,” I said, shaking my head. “Only one way to be sure, I guess. Let’s go.”
We parked on the curb and walked up the footpath to the front door. I stopped to open the mailbox. Inside, there were several letters that had gotten wet and then dried into a thick papery clump before the post office finally realized the home wasn’t occupied.
“It looks pretty rough compared to everything else around here,” Maddy said. “You’d think someone would buy it or that the city would condemn it and have it torn down to build something new.”
“It’s not totally dilapidated,” I said with a shrug. “But if someone doesn’t do something soon, that’s probably what’s going to happen.”
We were almost on the porch when Maddy stopped walking and gave a surprised little growl. I turned to look at her, immediately on guard. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
Maddy gave me a confused look. “I smell Kenneth. It’s one of the first times I’ve actually been able to recall a scent. It’s strange.”
“What? That can’t be possible. We watched him die.”
She shook her head and furrowed her brow. “It’s super faint, but it’s there. Like he’d been here at some point in the past.”
I looked at the house and the footprints we’d left in the dust on the porch steps.
The idea of scenting someone who’d been gone for that long was incomprehensible to me.
Not even the most sensitive shifters had senses that strong.
Even if Kenneth had been here right before going back to Europe, it was still nearly a month ago. Just how powerful was Maddy?
I raised a hand to knock. My knuckles sounded like a gunshot against the bone-dry wood of the door.
We waited several seconds before knocking again.
There was still no answer, so Maddy reached forward and tried the doorknob.
It turned easily, and the door swung open.
The inside looked as untouched as the outside.
Dust caked every surface and heavy cobwebs hung in the corners.
It was clear to see that it had been several years since anyone had been here.
Maddy took my hand as we walked across the threshold.
There was a single moment where I winced, anticipating some sort of booby trap.
Nightmare images of a hidden gun pointing at us, a trip wire leading to its trigger, filled my mind.
Thankfully, she stepped into the living room with no repercussions. I let out a little sigh of relief.
“Are you okay?” Maddy asked.
I nodded and chuckled ruefully. “Yeah. I think I’ve seen one too many adventure movies.”
Maddy smiled at me. “I had the same thought. Poison darts?”
I laughed out loud. “Tripwire and a gun. Your idea was way cooler.”
The strain dissipated a bit with our little jokes.
It made me less anxious, and I hoped it meant the same for Maddy.
The house was strangely untouched. Nothing had been taken, and a few pictures still hung on the wall.
Others had fallen, leaving behind faded squares where they’d once hung.
The furniture was right where it should have been.
It had the look of a place that had been abandoned quickly.
Had the royals found this woman? Did she have to run in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind, not even bothering to lock the door behind her? Perhaps.
Maddy sniffed the air and gave a little shake of her head. “I was right. It does smell faintly of Kenneth. There’s another smell, one that seems familiar, but I don’t know why. I can’t really place it. This way,” Maddy said, motioning for me to follow her.
She led me up the stairs. We went slowly, still wary of anything that might jump out at us.
The house seemed totally dead, though. Once we were at the top of the stairs, we followed the hallway to the end, where we found a small bedroom that seemed to have functioned as an office.
Unlike the rest of the house, which looked untouched, this room had been ransacked.
Whoever had been in here had been in a hurry.
Papers were scattered across the floor, a couple of filing cabinets had been left hanging open, and several files were strewn in a pile beneath the open doors.
A container of pens and pencils had been knocked over onto the floor. It was chaos.
The filing cabinet looked like the best place to look for clues, so I went straight for it.
Maddy moved around the room slowly as I pulled file after file out and skimmed through them.
They were coated in dust, but everything was still legible.
There was no way for me to know what I was looking for, but that didn’t stop me from looking through everything.
After the first few, it was obvious they were old medical files of patients Maddy’s birth mother must have had.
Every chart had her alias signature at the bottom. Malia Stanford, MD.
I wondered if she’d actually gone to med school.
Had Kenneth gotten her a new identity, plastic surgery, and all the false records needed to enroll?
Or had he faked everything? Had this woman been practicing medicine for decades with a fake medical degree and license? I didn’t want to think about that part.
Patterns started to jump out of the file.
Every single file was for a shifter patient.
All these people were shifters. They also all had birthdays that were within a month of Maddy’s.
Slowing my search, I tried to figure out precisely what she was looking for.
Maddy was quiet. I should have checked to see if she’d found anything, but I was too consumed with my own search.
Then I saw it. On the third page of every file, there was a DNA report.
A single line had been highlighted on all of them: a genetic marker search.
For some reason, Maddy’s birth mother had been trying to match the markers to something—but to what?
I dug back into the filing cabinet and saw a file that made my breath catch in my throat.
Madison Sutton. Maddy's name was tagged on the chart. I yanked it out and opened the file to the third page. Every other report had been circled in yellow highlighter. Maddy’s was circled in bright red ink.
Whoever had circled it had been so excited by what they’d seen that they’d put four or five circles around the results and put three check marks beside them.
Whatever marker this woman had been searching for, it looked like Maddy was a match.
I turned to show Maddy what I’d found, only to find her standing motionless at the other side of the room, staring into a closet.
I took a few tentative steps toward her, and before I could ask what was wrong, I saw what she was looking at.
There was an entire wall of the closet that was devoted to her.
There were literally dozens of pictures of Maddy.
The oldest looked like they’d been taken when she was a toddler.
Maddy’s skin had a more olive complexion back then.
She looked a lot more like her biological father in those photos.
A photo of Maddy at around seven years old was pinned up next to a yearbook picture of David Samuels. The resemblance was uncanny.
The pictures showed her growing up. Many appeared to have been taken with a telephoto lens from a good distance.
Maddy stepped into the closet, and I was able to see more.
The entire room was some sort of memorial to her.
Maddy didn’t make a sound as she looked at all the pictures.
The newest photos were of her at her graduation ceremony.
Her birth mother had been there? Or had someone been there on her behalf?
Kenneth? I had no doubt that if Gabriella had asked him, he’d have done this for her.
Maybe he’d taken most of these photos for her.
The entire thing was a strange combination of creepy, sweet, and sad.
So many years this woman had spent wanting nothing more than to be with the daughter she’d given up.
It hurt my heart to see it. I knew it had to be having the same effect on Maddy.
The same effect but magnified a thousand times.