Chapter Eighteen
KNOX
“Lily, what have you been looking for?”
Lily stared at the clear lid of her iced latte as if it held the answers to all of life's questions.
She chewed on her lower lip. Drew in a deep breath and let it out.
Finally, just when I was about to push, she raised her head, her brown eyes strained. “I can't find Adam's birth certificate.”
Her confession dropped between us like a stone.
Of all the things I'd expected her to say, that was nowhere on the list.
Adam's birth certificate.
What did Adam's birth certificate have to do with anything?
Seeing my incomprehension, she went on, “I'm sure you figured out Adam is adopted.” I nodded. “When Trey brought him home, there was a birth certificate. It had my name on it. And a contract for the adoption. An agreement that named Trey and me as his legal parents. It's gone. They're both gone.”
I absorbed the fear in Lily's eyes and looked from her to Adam. The summer sun gleamed on his white-blonde hair. His tan from playing outside was nothing like Lily’s tawny skin.
Shit.
Her reality exploded in my brain, all of the implications of a biracial woman with a son who very much did not resemble her, and no proof that she was his legal guardian. No proof she was his mom.
Trying to clarify I asked, “Couldn't you have sent off for his birth certificate? Gotten a lawyer?”
“I was scared. At first, I didn't even think of it.
I assumed the papers were where I'd last seen them.
In the file cabinet with the medical bills.
A few months after Trey died, I started thinking ahead to enrolling Adam in kindergarten, and when I went to look for his shot records, I realized all the paperwork relating to his adoption was gone. Including the birth certificate.
“I looked up how to send off for it, but you need to affirm who you are, your relationship to the person on the certificate. I was afraid if I said I was his mother and then I wasn't on the certificate they'd take him away. I thought about getting a lawyer, but the break-ins had already started—”
“—and with Deputy Dave implying you couldn't handle being a parent without Trey, you didn't want to say anything,” I finished for her.
Fuck. She'd been backed into a corner. Black Rock is a small town. If the police were questioning her fitness as a mother and it got out that she didn't have the documentation to prove her legal right to her son…
She could lose Adam. I already knew Lily would do anything to keep her son.
“I know the adoption was legal. I saw the paperwork—”
She swallowed hard, horror dawning on her face. Her pulse pounded in her throat as her eyes met mine. “Knox? It was legal, wasn't it? I don't know what Trey—”
She dropped her head, eyes fixed on her lap. A tear rolled off her lashes to darken a spot on her shorts. Then another. And another.
I lurched to my feet, yanking my chair from the sand and moving it beside her. Sitting, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me, wishing I could erase her fear.
I wanted to promise her everything would be okay. I didn't want to lie.
“Lily, we'll figure this out.” I had to tell her some of what I knew about Trey, but I didn't know where to start.
“From what we've uncovered so far, Trey, and my father, and some other people, including Andrei Tsepov, were working together, involved in a lot of sketchy shit. Some of it was selling kids to adoptive parents.”
Lily lifted her tear stained face. “You think Trey bought Adam?”
How much had Lily figured out? I didn't want to break her heart, but dancing around the truth wouldn't help.
“Lily,” I said as gently as I could, “I've seen pictures of Trey. Adam—”
“—looks almost exactly like him.”
“Yeah.”
Lily let herself lean into me for a moment longer before she pulled away. I left my arm resting on the back of her beach chair, my thumb grazing the top of her shoulder through her T-shirt.
She took a deep breath, then another, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “He, uh, things weren't good for a while before he brought Adam home. I was thinking maybe I'd made a mistake. We were trying to get pregnant and I, um, I couldn't. I—”
I could guess what she was struggling with. I didn't want to make her say it.
“I saw the medical bills, Lily.”
I waited for her to ask how. Why. Lily was too smart for that. She'd already figured out that I was there for more than just keeping her safe.
She nodded. “So you know I couldn't stay pregnant.”
I grabbed her hand. “No. I know you went through a rough time, and your husband was a shit. You never saw a fertility doctor?”
“No,” she said, her voice so low it was almost inaudible. “He said there was no point. And then he brought me Adam. I don't know why, Knox.”
Her eyes met mine for a second, beseeching and teary, her expression an ache in my chest. I wanted to bring Trey Spencer back from the dead so I could kill him again. So much pain, and he'd left her to handle it alone. She sniffed and looked back at her son, happily digging in the sand.
“He didn't want to be a father. He barely noticed Adam, complained about him being in the way. He didn't love me. Not by then. He didn't want me. I think he had someone else. But he brought me Adam. I didn't love Trey, but I loved Adam from that first minute.”
She rubbed the heel of her palm under her eye, scrubbing a stray tear.
“I didn't want to know. My name was on the birth certificate, on that contract, and Adam was mine. I should have asked. I know that. But I had Adam, and I loved him so much.”
“Lily, we'll find his birth certificate. No one will take Adam from you.”
I wanted to bite back the words. Until I had more information, I couldn't know that. Not really.
“Knox, you can't promise that.”
“I have resources. And I know a hell of a lot more about my father and Trey's business than you do. We'll figure this out.” I rubbed my thumb over her shoulder. “I wish you'd told me.”
“I wanted to. I thought about it so many times, but—”
“You were afraid to risk Adam.”
She nodded. “I don't want to stay there anymore. In that house Trey built. In that town.”
“Where do you want to go?”
She shrugged the shoulder under my hand and gave a helpless laugh. “I don't know. I've been afraid to plan. Afraid to do anything. As soon as I realized his birth certificate and the contract were missing, I knew we couldn't leave. I don't have anywhere to go.
“At least in Black Rock everyone knows me as Adam's mom. As long as Dave didn't start any trouble, I figured we'd be okay there, but I've been too scared to leave. Especially after what happened when he started preschool.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to register him, had all the paperwork, his shot record, copy of his birth certificate, but the woman who handled registrations didn't believe I was his mom. She said she needed Trey to come in, that they'd prefer his father register him, not his guardian or step-mother.”
“Bitch,” I swore, hating the way Lily stared at the sand in front of her feet, her eyes dark with pain. “Couldn't she read the birth certificate?”
“Oh, yeah, she could read. And she'd known me for years, knew Trey and I were married, knew I wasn't Adam's step-anything. But she wouldn't register him until Trey came in. And that happened with someone who knew us. I started thinking about what could happen if we left and—”
“I get it,” I said, gritting my teeth to force the roil of my emotions under control.
If that was the kind of bullshit Lily had to put up with, I wasn't surprised she'd been afraid to leave, afraid to tell me what she was looking for. One way or another, I was going to make this right for her. First, I had to get the whole picture of what was going on in Black Rock.
“What's up with Deputy Dave?”
“I don't know. He wasn't like this when Trey was alive. He was nice enough, always polite, but he was Trey's friend, not mine. Since Trey died, he's been… Weird.”
A grin twisted my lips. “He wants to fuck you,” I said bluntly.
Lily let out a shocked gasp and smacked my chest with the back of her hand. “Knox! He does not.”
My grin turned into a laugh. “Lily, trust me. I'm a guy. He totally wants to fuck you. He never flirted with you when Trey was alive?”
“Not that I noticed. Eww. Gross.”
“No interest in Deputy Dave?” I probed, half teasing and half serious.
“No! Oh, yuck. No. Not before, and especially not now.”
“You said he was Trey's best friend. Is it possible he worked for Trey?”
Lily stared out over the water, thinking. “I guess anything is possible, but I never heard them talk about business. Then again, Trey didn't talk about business that much anyway. I guess I don't know. If I could go back and not be such an idiot—”
“Lily, don't do that. None of us can go back. If the worst thing you've done is trust your husband and focus a little too much on your kid, you should cut yourself some slack.”
“I can't. Not if my being stupid put Adam in danger.”
“Trey is the one who put Adam in danger. Not you,” I said. “You really weren’t involved in Trey's business? I'm on your side. You can trust me. I swear.”
I didn't even have to think about that. I meant those words all the way to my bones.
If she was involved, if she'd played even the smallest part, I'd find a way to get her out of it.
I didn't need to know every detail to know Lily was innocent.
Even if she was guilty in action, she was innocent in her heart.
She shook her head slowly, tears welling in her eyes again.
“I almost wish I had been. Then I might have some idea what's going on.
I might be able to keep Adam safe. I don't know anything.
I know he worked with logistics. And he traveled a lot.
He had trucks that moved stuff, though I don't know what happened to them because they didn't come to me when he died.”
“What did come to you?” I probed, hoping she knew something I hadn't uncovered in the will.