Chapter 18 #3
“Though first, they tried blackmailing your parents.”
“What?”
“Your parents refused to pay, so they followed through on their threat and it all came out. In fact, it proved so lucrative they doubled down. They infiltrated the cleaning service your family used and got a maid to steal your journal. She funded a nice new life for herself and her family in Costa Rica.”
“My parents never mentioned this.”
“That’s something you’ll have to talk to them about. We also believe the death of Toby Fong is related.”
“How?”
“They were blackmailing him. I’m sure this will go no further, but we have it on good authority that he killed himself over it.”
“Oh, shit.” Griffin leaned forward, propping his elbows on his thighs. Lana placed a hand on his back.
“Whatever it was about, it was bad enough that he couldn’t see a way through.
You know what all this is like at that age.
” Estelle contemplated her drink. She hadn’t touched it, as if it were a prop.
“These people destroy lives—lives, fortunes, careers, reputations. And all the cops do is shrug and suggest we deserve it. We hoped that if we could get to Vivien first, she could identify the ringleaders and help us bring them to justice. But increasingly, it would appear that…” She met Lana’s worried gaze with genuine sympathy.
“I’m truly sorry, it doesn’t look good. We haven’t found a trace of her—and we’ve been looking. ”
In Lana’s vision, Estelle went watery at the edges. She’d kidded herself that the goons chasing them were proof Vivien was alive. Griffin shifted along the sofa and put his arm around Lana. Estelle looked from Lana to Griffin and back, and stood, silhouetted against the skyline.
“I trust that nothing I’ve said will go beyond these walls, and also that if you find out anything, you will keep me informed.”
“Sure,” Griffin said, obviously having as much trouble processing this as Lana was.
“I’ll see myself out.” Estelle took one more look at Lana—somehow folding pity and envy into the same glance.
For a long time after she left, Lana and Griffin didn’t talk.
“Maybe Vivien did take the money,” Lana said, eventually. “Went to Costa Rica.”
“She did have the baby to think of.”
“The baby,” she said to herself. “The baby. About that…”
From the door, a woman cleared her throat. Evangeline. “I’ve figured it out.” She strode in, carrying the tablet and a laptop. “The connection between Vivien and Walter Shepherd.”
“Me, too,” Lana said, surprised.
“Really?” Evangeline sounded disappointed.
Griffin looked between Lana and his mother. “Anyone wanna let me in?”
“You first,” Evangeline said, taking the spot on the sofa that Estelle had vacated.
Lana sat forward. “I failed to notice what was missing from her reading history—adoption, DNA, attachment theory, Walter Shepherd and his wife… But no books about pregnancy and birth—and I’ve never known a pregnant woman to leave the library without one.
In itself, no big deal, right? Maybe she was happy to google the pregnancy, maybe she bought a book.
But then, the photo of my parents, in the newspaper.
It was the Christmas Eve before Vivien was born—like, two months before she was born.
Her birthday is leap day, February 29. My mother should have been seven months pregnant, but she obviously was not.
I feel silly even suggesting this, but…”
“Griffin?” Evangeline said. “You did tell Lana about the birth certificates?”
“Didn’t get a chance.”
Evangeline looked confused—she clearly didn’t know about Estelle’s visit.
“Mom got her P.I. to look up Vivien’s birth certificate,” Griffin explained to Lana. He gestured at his mother to take over.
“He discovered that the original record is sealed,” Evangeline said.
Lana frowned. “What does that mean? Also, you have your own P.I.?”
“It’s what commonly happens in an adoption.
However, he’s nothing if not resourceful.
” Evangeline unlocked the laptop and passed it to Lana.
“He managed to get a look at it—usually you need a court order for this in California, but he is connected in ways I don’t even want to ask about—and he managed to take a photo.
The father’s name is missing. The mother’s name is… ”
“Oh my god,” Lana said, reading. “That’s my aunt Brenda—my dad’s sister. She died, years ago. She was Vivien’s mother? So it’s true—Vivien’s not my sister? She was adopted?”
Evangeline shot Griffin a loaded look. He shifted closer to Lana, his thigh touching hers. “Mom’s P.I. also looked up your birth certificate.”
“You looked up my birth certificate? Why?”
Griffin’s mouth flatlined. “Actually, she started with yours.” He met his mother’s eye, and a look passed between them that Lana couldn’t interpret.
“My parents have a thing for background checks—I’m sorry.
Usually, they get people to sign a form first.” He tapped the keyboard, bringing up a photo of another birth certificate. “Again, the original was sealed.”
Lana double-blinked. She was looking at her full name, her date of birth. But in the space for her mother’s name was … Brenda Fleming. No father. The same as Vivien’s. “No way. But I have my birth certificate—it has my parents’ names on it.”
“An amended birth certificate looks just like an original, apparently,” Evangeline said. “Looking at it, you’d never know the person was adopted.”
Evangeline drew a folded piece of paper from her pocket and laid it on the coffee table—a grid of names, roughly scribbled in pencil, with lines and arrows, and a lot of crossing out.
A family tree. “This is very rough. But those names on the DNA site? Many of them are from branches of prominent old Hollywood families. I put together the names I knew, plus the info on the site, and called some friends—discreetly—and did some extrapolation, and I managed to trace back the relationships to a common source. A missing link, if you will.” She tapped a name, written in pencil and circled several times.
Lana didn’t have to read it. She already knew. “Walter Shepherd,” she said. “Vivien’s father. My father.”