3. Garrett
GARRETT
“She’s absolutely, definitely, not mine.” Anger and annoyance heat my words, bring them to a boil.
The toddler whimpers, her eyes round, and she buries her face in the woman’s chest again.
Shit . I hadn’t meant to scare her.
I take a step back, giving the little girl space so she doesn’t feel threatened.
The rain picks up intensity, soaking through my Henley. The front stoop shelters the woman and the toddler from the rain and the wind, but not the spring chill. The girl must be cold.
I rein in my emotions at the woman’s outrageous claim. “There’s been a mistake. You have the wrong house.” Because I know for certain the toddler is not my daughter.
The woman shakes her head, her strawberry-blond ponytail slicing the air. “There’s no mistake. You’re Garrett Carson.”
Shit. Shit-Shit-Shit. Annie Wilkes 3.0. Is that what this is?
At least the last obsessed fan hadn’t tried to foist a child on me and pretend it was mine.
“I can guarantee she’s not my daughter. For one, I’ve never seen you before. And you might not know anything about genetics, but I do. You and I are both white. The little girl isn’t. One of us needs to be Black for her to be biologically ours.”
Kellan moves up beside me, and the toddler lets out another whimper. Her fear-widened eyes dart between Kellan and me.
I pull out my phone from my pocket, ready to call the cops. It was bad enough being stalked, but for a child to be dragged into this woman’s delusions…
And how did she end up with the little girl? Yes, she might be the girl’s mother. But it’s also possible a family somewhere is desperately searching for their missing toddler. Like in Untold Mercy .
Shit, is that what this is about?
No, that can’t be it. The blurb for the book hasn’t been revealed yet. She might be imitating something she’s read in a novel, but it isn’t the one sitting on my laptop.
A flush spreads up the woman’s neck and cheeks, drowning out the freckles splattered across her face.
“Oh, cats in a flying saucepan.” Her hand goes to the oval pendant around her neck, and she rubs it between her fingers.
“I didn’t mean I’m her mother. Kenda is her mother.
Was her mother.” Pain twists on her face, the final three words hovering on a silent sob.
The words—spoken so softly I almost missed them—roar in my head like a tornado tearing through a small town, turning my thoughts to dust. “What do you mean was ?”
“She-she’s dead.” The woman hugs the little girl closer as if protecting her from the truth.
A cold chill numbs my body more than the rain ever could, and my voice comes out like a shard of rough ice. “Dead? How?” She’s lying. She has to be lying.
I may not be in love with Kenda anymore, but she will always hold a space in my heart. She can’t be dead—I’d know if she was.
The woman straightens her shoulders. The flush on her face has faded, and her skin is once again pale. “She-she was shopping and-and was caught in the crossfire. A mass shooting. Several people died.”
“Maybe we should continue this inside.” Kellan eyes the pair with an unsettled interest. He doesn’t look like he believes anything she’s just told us any more than I do, but he’s obviously willing to hear what she has to say.
Maybe because he’s thinking the same thing I am—the toddler has possibly been abducted to be used in this woman’s charade.
The woman shoots him a grateful, if not somewhat uncertain, glance and nods. “We’re going into your daddy’s house.” The words are spoken softly to the toddler like a lullaby.
She picks up the bag by her feet. I open the door, and they follow me into the foyer.
The woman scans the space, no doubt taking in the dark colors and the simple, masculine interior design. The same masculine theme can be found in the rest of the house—a fact Zara loves to tease me about.
Zara.
Shit. Kenda was one of her closest friends in college, and as far as I knew, they kept in contact.
If Kenda had been pregnant, surely, she would’ve told Zara.
Zara never mentioned Kenda had a baby. Why not?
To spare my feelings, knowing I was once in love with her?
That was a long time ago. Things change. People change.
People change, but Kenda knew me. She knew I would accept responsibility for my child if I’d accidentally knocked her up. She’d had no reason to keep the truth from me.
Kenda. Dead.
The woman’s lying about that too. This is nothing more than a twisted stolen-identity scam.
I should just call the cops and turn her in, but something has me stalling. Curiosity, maybe. Curiosity about what other lies the woman has planned. I point toward the living room, indicating for us to continue the discussion in there.
She toes off her sneakers and carries the toddler to where I pointed. Kellan and I hang back in the foyer.
“There’s no chance you could be that little girl’s father, is there?” he asks.
“Kenda would’ve told me if she was pregnant.”
He regards me for a beat. “You’re saying there is a chance? You and Kenda had sex two or so years ago? ”
I shove my fingers through my wet hair, pushing the longer strands off my forehead.
“Yes. We bumped into each other in New York City. I was there to meet up with my agent and editor. Kenda and I got together afterward for drinks, and well…” I leave the rest hanging.
He’ll fill in the blanks. “We used protection, if that’s what you’re wondering. ” But even that’s not infallible.
“You never heard from her after that?”
I shake my head, though that’s not entirely true. She texted me a month or two later, but I was pissed at her and ignored her text.
Fuuuuck.
No, it can’t be that. If she was pregnant, she wouldn’t have sent me the single text and kept quiet when I didn’t reply. She would have tried again. Plus, if it was true, she knew where I lived. She would have told me the news to my face.
Kellan looks over his shoulder, toward the living room. “Guess we’d better find out what this woman wants.”
I glance down at my phone. “I should call Noah. We don’t know where the toddler came from—and if someone is searching for her. Or if Kenda is dead.”
“Let’s talk to her first and then decide on the police front. That little girl is scared as it is, without us making things worse by bringing the cops in just yet.”
I release a hard breath that does nothing to settle the tangle of emotions. “Okay.” He’s right. Whoever that little girl is, she’s terrified. But she seems to trust the woman. Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps?
“Stay here,” I say to Kellan. “I’ll grab you a towel.” Stay here and make sure the woman isn’t up to no good .
I return to the foyer in dry clothes and toss him a towel and spare T-shirt. I towel-dry my hair while he quickly changes into the top.
The woman and toddler are sitting in the middle of the large sectional couch when we walk into the living room. The woman is reading to the girl, the light from the huge picturesque windows falling softly on them.
The woman points to a picture in the children’s book. “Do you think the tiger eats butterflies for lunch?” Her voice is soft, sweet, but there’s also a touch of hardness beneath the surface. As if she wouldn’t hesitate to reveal her claws should someone threaten the girl.
The little girl rapidly shakes her head, a smile breaking out on her small mouth. It vanishes as soon as she spots Kellan and me. Her bottom lip pushes out, and she shrinks back against the woman.
I flick on the gas fireplace. What the hell was the woman thinking? She could have at least put a jacket on the toddler before they sat outside to wait for me.
I sit on the end of the sectional.
Kellan takes the armchair, his posture deceptively laid-back. “Do you two have names?”
“I’m Athena, and this is Peony.” The woman nods at the girl.
The girl—Peony—looks up again from the book and her smile returns once more for Athena’s benefit.
She has Kenda’s mouth .
I push the thought away. Until I know if she is Kenda’s daughter or not, I can’t think of Peony in those terms.
Peony.
Kenda’s favorite flower. Or it was when we were a couple. I’d given her a bouquet of them on more than one occasion while we were dating.
“Athena what?” The casualness in Kellan’s voice is fake, but Athena won’t know that. “Do you have a last name?”
“Williams.” She unzips the large bag by her side, searches through it, and pulls out an envelope. “This is for you, Garrett.”
I reach across the coffee table and take it from her. My name is written on the front in Kenda’s loopy handwriting.
“Kenda told me if anything should happen to her, I was to give that to you.”
I rip open the sealed envelope and pull out two folded pieces of paper. One is a letter. The second is a birth certificate. Kenda’s name is listed as the mother, and I am listed as the father. The birth certificate is from Louisiana. I flip it over. Is it possible the document is fake?
Dear Garrett ,
If you’re reading this, it means one thing. I’m dead. And if that’s true, I’m so sorry. So sorry for not telling you sooner you have a daughter. In my defense, I did try to tell you once I realized our one night together in New York was going to result in a baby. You never returned my text.
I can’t pretend not to know why. I shouldn’t have slipped out of the hotel room while you were sleeping without saying good-bye or without leaving you a note.
I hurt you. We were once close friends and a couple, and I couldn’t even treat you with more respect than a one-night stand who couldn’t get away fast enough.
I could say it was complicated, but that sounds like a cop-out, even if it is true. The same with why I didn’t contact you again. It was complicated.
I’ve asked Athena to bring Peony to you should something happen to me before I can tell you about your daughter. My father doesn’t know about her, and I would prefer it stays that way. I’ve told you enough about him for you to understand my decision.