Chapter 23
Lana
With all the monitors beeping in Darnell’s room, Lana almost missed her phone chiming in her pocket. It was Griffin, sending her photos—screenshots of headlines from the websites he hated so much.
Griffin Hart’s Desperate Plea to Toby Fong.
Toby Fong’s Death: Griffin Hart’s Guilty Conscience.
I could have saved Toby Fong, and I didn’t: Griffin Hart’s Confession.
Her phone rang: Griffin.
“Griffin, that’s awful,” she said, getting up from her chair and moving to the window. The crowd outside the main doors had grown, their noise filtering through the thick glass.
“I’ve told that story to no one but you.”
She stilled. His tone was devoid of warmth. “What … what are you saying?”
“I remember the moment I told you. We were alone, in your car, driving to L.A. We couldn’t have been overheard.”
“Wait—you think I did this? Sold your secrets? I would never!”
There was silence for a few seconds. “I don’t know how to take this, Lana.”
“Neither do I! I’m so sorry this has happened, but you can’t honestly think it was me.”
“I don’t know you. I met you three days ago.” She heard the ticking of a turn signal—he was driving. “I’ve told you so many things.”
“And I haven’t repeated anything to anyone—I’ve hardly talked to anyone without you there. There must be someone else who knows.”
“Who?”
“What about Estelle? Did you tell her?”
“No—did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know, I just—she made it clear she didn’t approve of you and me.” You and me—as if that were a thing. “Maybe you did tell her, and you don’t remember.”
“Shit, Lana. Estelle might be complicated, but I’ve known her for years. I trust her completely.”
Lana heard the implication loud and clear. Why did she even suggest Estelle? In her panic, it was the first explanation that came to mind. Self-sabotage—the thing she did best. She went to retract her words, but the door swished open, and Walter walked in.
“Walter’s here,” she hissed, turning away. “Griffin, please, you have to believe me—I haven’t told anyone. I don’t know how I can convince you.”
“Neither do I. You’d better talk to him.” Griffin’s voice had gone into neutral.
“Griffin, please don’t do that—don’t retract. Are you still coming to—”
He’d hung up. She pressed her lips together. Her chest hurt. Despite the neon warnings that this wasn’t a guy she could have, it turned out she truly wanted him.
“That’s Darnell?” Walter said, looking at the bed. “Is this why there are so many people out there? Poor man. What happened?”
“Surfing accident, they think.”
As Lana explained, she surreptitiously located the call button. But what could Walter do to her in a hospital full of people? And he was her … father. He looked old and frail. If his trousers had fit him once, they didn’t anymore—the belt could loop around him twice.
“Walt—Mr. Shep…” What should she even call him? “Look, I know the truth,” she blurted, “about who you are, in relation to me.”
His gray eyebrows latched together. “Haven’t we had this conversation?”
“Turns out, no. At that point, I didn’t know what the connection was. Long story.”
He pointed at her phone. “Are you recording this conversation?”
“No!”
“Then would you please switch that thing off and shut it in a cupboard?”
Lana looked at it. It was her only connection to Griffin—if he was even helping anymore. Was she on her own now?
“Otherwise, I’m leaving,” Walter said.
“I’ll turn it off.” She didn’t need another false accusation, and his fear of publicity had to be even greater than Griffin’s.
“But first, I need to show you a photo.” She pulled up the security camera picture of Vivien.
“Okay, now it’s powering off.” She slid it under some blankets in a cupboard.
“That’s the last sighting we have of Vivien.
She last came to see you four weeks ago, not six.
” Lana quoted the date and time stamped on the photo. “A Saturday.”
“I wasn’t here. That was Grace’s birthday—her ninety-first—and she wanted to spend it at home. We were gone all weekend.”
Lana stared blankly at an artwork. So, what, Vivien had just left again? Was this yet another dead end? “Walter, are you being blackmailed over this?”
His already pallid face grayed. “They’re taking all I have,” he whispered, stabbing a finger in the air.
“Threatening to put everything out there. So, if it’s money you’re after, I’m already being sucked dry.
Not that I care a hoot about money, or this accursed film they’re making. I care about Grace—she can’t find out.”
“I don’t want your money, I just want the truth. It might help me find Vivien.”
His gaze dropped to her neck and his expression softened. “You’re wearing the necklace.”
Lana automatically touched it.
“Vivien was wearing hers too. I gave one to each of you when I said goodbye.”
“You gave us these?”
“‘Always in my heart,’” he said, quoting the inscription. “Rose gold, from Tiffany’s.”
“We never take them off.” Lana had always assumed they were from her parents—her other parents.
Her mom hadn’t allowed the girls to wear them until they were old enough to be trusted with them.
“Shall we sit?” Lana had wanted this, wanted to see him, but now she didn’t know where to start. Her mind wasn’t exactly settled.
“Don’t think badly of me. I couldn’t bear that.
” He let her lead him to the armchair the detective had occupied earlier.
“I loved two women, each with all my heart—I still do. You can, you know—love two people equally. The same way you can love each of your children with all your heart. A heart expands. And you were the sweetest little girls. I would read you stories.” He closed his eyes, and a tear slipped down his papery cheek.
“Vivien loved anything with zoo animals, and you would curl into me, enraptured, even before you understood the words, cuddling your toy rabbit. You used to suck on its ears. I bought that for you too.”
“Rabby?” She still had him, sitting on a shelf between The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables.
Her mother had sewn up the ears so often they were all thread and no fur.
Lana sat in the second armchair, at an angle.
“So you were involved in our lives?” He didn’t just father them, he was their father, for a time.
She’d known this man, in her earliest moments.
Had she missed this man? Had she cried for him, like she’d cried for Brenda?
“Of course. What did you think—that I would have two children with a woman and not be involved?”
“I haven’t had a lot of time to process it. You were married. You paid our parents—our adoptive parents—to take us away.”
He rubbed the loose skin at the bridge of his nose.
“I know how it looks. I was much older than Brenda, but she was an old soul, so we met in the middle. When she fell pregnant, I begged her to keep the baby, I promised I’d support her.
I rented an apartment for her, and I’d go around there and play with Vivien—even changed her diaper on occasion!
And then you came along, and my heart could not have been fuller.
But the guilt…” He looked and sounded like he was desperate for air.
“Oh, Grace… She’s older than me by sixteen years—I suppose you know this—and we faced so much prejudice, she’s always been insecure about it.
She desperately wanted children—we both did—but she had multiple miscarriages, and a stillbirth.
We tried to adopt, and both times it fell through, and she couldn’t face it again.
After Brenda died, I thought about adopting you girls, pretending I wasn’t your real father, but that felt too dangerous.
If Grace knew that not only had I been carrying on with a woman less than half her age, but I’d also had children with her… ”
He grabbed Lana’s hand in both of his, like it was a lifeline.
“It’s the hardest thing I ever did, letting you go.
I didn’t want to lose my little girls, but when Brenda died, it was a mess, I was a mess.
A mess of my own making, I know that, but I was grieving, and of course Grace couldn’t know.
” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the back of Lana’s hand.
“Dear girl, I’ve thought of you constantly, every day.
Not just consciously—you exist in my subconscious.
You are part of my thoughts, part of me.
” He released her and pulled out a wrinkled handkerchief to blow his nose.
“I knew I would miss out on being your father but you would be happy and loved and protected, and I told myself that was the important thing.”
Lana was welling up herself. She had imagined confronting him, demanding to know about Vivien’s visit, about what he was hiding.
She hadn’t imagined this. She could see Vivien in him—the shape of his mouth, perhaps a tendency to the mercurial.
Was there anything of herself? Did he exist in her subconscious, too?
She swallowed. This would all need to be processed later.
There’d be a lot of reading up. For now, she had to keep her head straight.
“Can you run me through what happened with Vivien? You thought she was blackmailing you?”
“If you think it’ll help… It must stay between us, though.”
“I understand.”