Thirty #2
Valerie knew that voice. Penny was treating her like staff. She did nothing, but her mind replayed the memory of Tracey Jefferies directing a small pitying smile in Penny’s direction.
Penny stared at her for a moment. “Valerie? Didn’t you hear me? Get moving.”
“I have it under control,” she said a little too loudly thanks to her nerves. “This is my event, not yours. I know how to run it.”
“Surely past history has shown…”
“The point of history is that it’s over,” said Valerie, feeling the rightness of it. “If you didn’t trust me, you could have done this yourself. But I did a good job, and it’s going to end the way it started. Perfect and professional.”
Penny stared at her, but Valerie didn’t look away. Then, Penny…simply left, as if Valerie hadn’t said a word. Valerie watched her go as she tried to get her heart rate back to normal. Confrontation might never get easy, but she’d done it, and that’s what was important.
The phone charging behind the counter rang, spiking her already high adrenaline.
She grabbed it and realized it was Nico’s, not hers.
When she saw the name Andrew Swanson, she decided to answer anyway, ducking behind the counter and lowering her voice to talk to the private investigator.
“Do you have something?” she asked, after explaining who she was.
“I didn’t think that dumpling tip would come to anything, but this is going to redeem me for messing up Goderich.” The investigator sounded smugly confident. “I found Yvette and Rory.”
“Who?” She thumped down in one of the chairs lining the wall.
“The daughter’s name is Rory.”
Valerie stared straight ahead at the people waving goodbye as Andrew told her Yuting Tsui married a man named Alon Bautista.
“In Alon’s obituary, her daughter, Rory, was mentioned, along with Yuting’s old nickname, Yvette.
Apparently she and Alon married about twenty years ago and opened a small dumpling joint in Vancouver. ”
A dumpling place. Did Yvette think of Roger when she went to work? Of the Lakeview and her mother making dumplings for Linda and her husband?
“Is there anything else?”
“Yuting lives in Vancouver and her daughter helps run the restaurant.” The investigator gave her the name of the restaurant and Yuting’s phone number.
All that agonizing, and now she had it. She knew where Yvette and Rory were.
Roger’s real family. He was going to be thrilled.
Mind you, they still needed to find out who had been the one to interfere with his life, but once they contacted Yvette, Roger would be able to get the full story.
He and Yvette could talk. Maybe have a second chance.
She could feel the lump starting in her throat as she imagined Roger’s expression when he met his daughter for the first time.
Nico would be stunned and no doubt thrilled.
There would be tears, and hugs, and more tears.
Nico and Roger had been so good to her, and she now had a way to repay the favor by making this meeting special.
First things first. She’d seen how depressed Roger was after the last tip had panned out, and it had affected Nico as well.
She would keep this news to herself, only for a bit.
She could contact Yvette and Rory in advance to confirm this was the real Yvette and avoid a repeat of Goderich.
Maybe she could bring them here as a surprise.
Roger would be ecstatic, and while she had nothing to do with finding Yvette and Rory, she could make it extra special for him.
As the servers collected the empty glasses, she found their restaurant online.
It was called Bundle, and the photos of the dumplings—including sweet dessert ones with banana and maple—made her mouth water.
Unfortunately, there were no photos of people.
That was soon rectified through Google, which showed her Yvette and Rory posing with a handsome silver fox of a man who must be Alon.
They were wearing cartoonishly huge white chef’s hats and holding a tray filled with what looked like steamed buns at a street festival.
Valerie zoomed in on Rory first. Did they look alike?
In a way. They both had narrow features and bone-straight hair, unless Rory had smoothed out some natural waves.
Rory had Roger’s slightly lopsided mouth.
Did she have the same sense of humor as Valerie?
Did she like reading? Was she athletic? She craved knowing what Roger’s daughter was like, and how similar they were.
She was about to do a deep dive when she stopped herself.
In a matter of seconds, it had started to feel too personal, as if she and Rory were somehow connected.
They weren’t.
Rory was—potentially, probably—Roger’s daughter, who Valerie had been hired to impersonate.
They had nothing else in common. Valerie wasn’t a Badgerton, despite the donated clothes and access to the cottage.
She wasn’t part of this family. She’d been hired for a job, and the best she could hope for was that when the truth came out, it would be enough to overshadow her role in tricking everyone.
She put away the phone, feeling suddenly sobered after the rush of knowing Yvette and Rory existed, but it didn’t take long for her elation to return. She would make this reunion perfect for them.
The kitchen door opened and Mickey poked out his head. “Hey, Valerie?” he said. “I could use some help with this ice cream. Kinda urgent. Are you free?”
She came out from behind the counter. Fixing Roger’s life would have to wait until she was done here.