Chapter 5 - The Secret Before I Was Born
"No."
Rachel stepped backward.
Thomas didn't move.
"No," she repeated.
Margaret had arrived under police supervision for questioning.
When Rachel confronted her with the DNA report, Margaret collapsed into a chair.
"It's true."
Rachel felt as if another floor had disappeared beneath her.
Thomas looked equally devastated.
"I didn't know."
Margaret nodded.
"We were twenty-two."
Before Charles.
Before Whitmore Development.
Margaret and Thomas had dated briefly.
They separated before Margaret realized she was pregnant.
Henry Whitmore hated Thomas's working-class family and forced Margaret to hide the pregnancy.
Then Charles entered her life.
He knew Rachel wasn't biologically his.
He married Margaret anyway.
And raised Rachel as his daughter.
"Why didn't you tell Thomas?" Rachel asked.
"My father threatened him."
Thomas closed his eyes.
Henry had offered him money to leave town.
Thomas refused.
Then Henry threatened Thomas's parents' business.
Thomas eventually left.
He never knew Margaret was pregnant.
Rachel looked at Charles through the ICU glass.
The man who had lied about nearly everything had never lied about loving her.
That realization hurt differently.
"Daniel found this?"
Margaret nodded.
"He discovered it while tracing Henry's old accounts."
Rachel understood why Daniel hadn't told her.
He'd been trying to verify it.
Thomas looked at Rachel.
"I don't expect anything from you."
She appreciated that.
"I can't do this right now."
"I know."
He left.
Rachel entered Charles's room.
His eyes opened.
"You know."
She nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was afraid biology would matter to you."
"You were my dad."
His eyes filled with tears.
"You still are."
Charles turned away and cried.
Rachel sat beside him.
For all his failures, that truth remained simple.
He had taught her to ride a bike.
Sat through terrible school plays.
Walked her down the aisle.
Held Emma after she was born.
Stayed awake with Lucy when she had pneumonia.
Thomas might be her biological father.
Charles was Dad.
Both truths could exist.
Daniel recovered steadily.
Three days after Christmas, he was moved out of intensive care.
The girls were discharged.
Rachel refused to return to her parents' house.
Instead, she took Emma and Lucy to a hotel near the hospital.
Thomas paid for adjoining rooms without telling her.
When she discovered it, she almost returned the money.
Then Emma said, "Mr. Thomas saved us."
Rachel let it go.
Margaret remained under investigation.
She called every day.
Rachel didn't answer.
On the fourth day, Emma asked, "Are you mad at Grandma forever?"
Rachel sat beside her.
"I don't know."
"She did a bad thing."
"Yes."
"But she was scared."
"Being scared doesn't make the bad thing disappear."
Emma thought about this.
"Can people be sorry and still be in trouble?"
Rachel looked at her eight-year-old daughter and wondered when children became wiser than adults.
"Yes."
"Okay."
That was enough for Emma.
Rachel wished it were enough for her.
Meanwhile, federal investigators descended on Whitmore Development.
Daniel's files gave them everything.
Accounts were frozen.
Executives questioned.
Properties seized.
Charles announced his resignation.
Then he made another decision.
He would surrender control of the company to Margaret, its legal owner, who would place it in a trust pending the investigation.
Margaret refused.
Instead, she signed documents transferring legitimate assets into a restitution fund for people harmed by Henry and Eleanor's schemes.
Rachel heard about it from Daniel.
"Your mother is trying."
Rachel looked through the hospital window.
"Trying doesn't erase what happened."
"No."
Daniel took her hand.
"But maybe it matters anyway."
Rachel leaned against him.
"I almost lost all of you."
"But you didn't."
She looked at him.
He was thinner.
Paler.
Alive.
That word mattered more than anything.
Alive.
The girls visited him that afternoon.
Lucy climbed onto the bed despite three nurses telling her not to.
Emma presented him with a new paper angel.
"For next Christmas."
Daniel hugged them both.
Rachel watched.
For the first time since Christmas Day, she felt something besides fear.
Hope.
Then Thomas entered.
He carried Bunny.
Lucy ran to him.
"Mr. Snow Man!"
Thomas laughed.
Rachel hadn't heard him laugh before.
He knelt and handed her the repaired rabbit.
"I think he survived."
Lucy inspected the stitched ear.
"He's perfect."
Thomas stood.
Rachel looked at him.
"Thank you."
"For the rabbit?"
"For my daughters."
His expression softened.
"Any decent person would've done it."
"No."
Rachel shook her head.
"Not everyone did."
Thomas understood.
Later they talked alone.
He told Rachel about Rebecca.
His daughter was now twenty-two.
Living in Seattle.
Studying architecture.
Rachel had a half-sister.
The idea was almost absurd.
"Does she know?"
"About you? No."
Rachel nodded.
"Give me time."
"Take all of it."
That answer helped.
Days passed.
Eleanor refused to cooperate.
Then prosecutors found the recording from Thomas's locker.
Combined with Daniel's evidence, the case was overwhelming.
Rachel thought there could be no more secrets.
She was wrong.
A week after New Year's, a package arrived at the hotel.
No return address.
Inside was an old photograph.
Henry Whitmore stood beside Eleanor.
Between them was a teenage boy Rachel didn't recognize.
On the back:
THE PERSON WHO STARTED THIS IS STILL ALIVE.
Rachel called Thomas.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
He stared at the boy.
"I know him."
"Who?"
Thomas sat down.
"His name was Samuel Cross."
"Was?"
"He supposedly died in 1999."
Rachel looked at the message again.
"Apparently not."
Daniel examined the photograph.
"How is he connected?"
Thomas hesitated.
"Samuel created Northstar."
Rachel stared.
"I thought Eleanor did."
"No. She took control of it."
"Then who was Samuel?"
Thomas looked toward the girls sleeping in the next room.
"Henry's illegitimate son."
Rachel closed her eyes.
Another family secret.
"What does he want?"
"I don't know."
Rachel's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
A photograph of Emma and Lucy leaving school earlier that afternoon.
Rachel's blood froze.
Below it were five words:
ELEANOR WAS NEVER IN CHARGE.
Another message arrived.
I AM.
Rachel immediately called police.
Before the call connected, someone knocked on the hotel-room door.
Three slow knocks.
Thomas moved toward it.
Rachel stopped him.
The knocking came again.
Then a man's voice spoke from the hallway.
"Rachel, we need to talk about your daughters."
May you like
The handle turned.
Someone had a key.
