Chapter 5 - Lorraine’s Other Daughter
Travis did not speak.
Lorraine’s words seemed to hit him physically.
Naomi Brooks was my daughter.
He stared at his mother as if he had forgotten how to recognize her.
“What did you say?”
Lorraine lowered her eyes.
“I had a daughter before you were born.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The word came sharper the second time.
“Dad would have told me.”
“Your father knew.”
Travis stepped back.
I could see anger gathering behind his shock.
“You had another child.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told Dana or me?”
Lorraine looked toward the living room.
“Can we sit down?”
“No.”
“Travis.”
“Answer me standing up.”
Snow melted in Lorraine’s hair.
A dark drop slid down the side of her face.
For once, she did not look like the woman who had ruled Hawthorne House.
She looked old.
“I was seventeen.”
Travis’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“My parents sent me to stay with an aunt in Ohio.”
Her voice shook.
“I gave birth there.”
“Who was the father?”
“A boy from school.”
“Name.”
“Samuel Brooks.”
Travis stared at her.
“Naomi used his last name.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
“I was told she had been adopted.”
“Told?”
“My parents handled everything.”
“Did you sign papers?”
“I signed whatever they put in front of me.”
Travis laughed bitterly.
“That is convenient.”
“It is the truth.”
“And she just appeared thirty years later working with your charity?”
Lorraine closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
I finally spoke.
“Did she know you were her mother?”
“Eventually.”
“How eventually?”
“She approached me.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
Lorraine wrapped her arms around herself.
“She had spent years searching.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you think I did?”
Her defensiveness returned for one second.
Then it collapsed.
“I panicked.”
Travis’s expression hardened.
“You rejected her.”
“I told her I needed time.”
“You rejected her.”
“I had a husband.”
“You mean the husband who knew.”
Lorraine flinched.
“I had two children who didn’t.”
“So you protected us from having a sister?”
“I protected everything.”
There it was.
The word Lorraine always worshipped.
Everything.
The house.
The family image.
The carefully managed world.
Everything except the people inside it.
I looked at her.
“How did Victor Hale get involved?”
“Naomi worked for the foundation.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to know me.”
Lorraine’s voice became barely audible.
“She thought if she volunteered beside me, I would eventually let her into my life.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Travis turned away.
“Jesus.”
“I was afraid.”
“You were embarrassed.”
“I was raised in a time when—”
“Do not blame the decade.”
Lorraine stared at him.
“She could have destroyed my marriage.”
“Dad knew.”
“Not at first.”
“But when he learned?”
“He wanted to bring her into the family.”
That surprised me.
“What stopped him?”
Lorraine’s eyes shifted.
“Me.”
Travis nodded slowly.
“Of course.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of her?”
“Of myself.”
That answer sounded more honest.
Not enough.
But honest.
“What does this have to do with Victor?” I asked.
Lorraine sat without permission on the bench beside the entry table.
Her hands trembled in her lap.
“Victor found out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“He blackmailed you because you had a daughter?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Her face tightened.
“Then Naomi found discrepancies in the foundation accounts.”
“The diverted money.”
“Yes.”
“Were you stealing it?”
“No.”
Travis gave her a look of open disbelief.
“I signed documents.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“What did you think you were signing?”
“Vendor reimbursements.”
“To your own company?”
She closed her eyes.
“Victor created LBM Services.”
“Using your initials?”
“Yes.”
“And you never thought that was suspicious?”
“He told me it was for legitimate consulting income.”
“How much did you receive?”
“Very little.”
“How much?”
“Forty-two thousand over several years.”
Travis shook his head.
“You took secret money from a charity contractor.”
“I reported income.”
“That is not the point.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Lorraine looked at me.
“Victor controlled everything.”
“People always say that after the person who can contradict them is dead.”
Her mouth tightened.
“That’s why I brought the photograph.”
“What does Walter at a gas station prove?”
“It proves we were both there.”
“Why?”
“Because Aaron called Walter.”
My heart kicked.
“When?”
“The night he died.”
“Why?”
“He said he had evidence against Victor.”
“Why call Walter?”
“Because by then, Aaron believed Walter was helping him.”
That matched the note in the music box.
If a man named Walter contacts you, listen to him.
I felt dizzy.
“What happened at the gas station?”
Lorraine looked at the floor.
“Aaron wanted us to meet.”
“Us?”
“Walter and me.”
“Why you?”
“Because he said Naomi was in danger.”
Travis went still.
“What did he know about Naomi?”
“Everything.”
“How?”
“She contacted him.”
I sat down.
“Naomi knew Aaron?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell him?”
“That Victor had been using the foundation to funnel money.”
“We know that.”
“And that Victor had threatened her.”
“With what?”
Lorraine’s face crumpled.
“With making her disappear.”
A chill moved through me.
“You said she disappeared.”
“She did.”
“When?”
“Two days before Aaron died.”
Nobody spoke.
Lorraine’s eyes filled with tears.
“Victor told me she had taken settlement money and left the state.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
The confession was ugly precisely because it sounded true.
“What was the six hundred and eighty thousand dollars?” Travis asked.
“Ransom.”
The word landed like glass breaking.
Travis stared at her.
“What?”
Lorraine wiped her face.
“Victor told Walter that Naomi had copied files.”
“He said she was threatening to expose everyone.”
“Was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“He demanded money?”
“He said if Walter paid, Naomi would be allowed to leave safely.”
“And Dad borrowed the money.”
“Yes.”
“Did Naomi get it?”
“No.”
“Then where did it go?”
“Victor.”
Travis paced away.
“You let Dad borrow almost seven hundred thousand dollars to pay a man who claimed he had your daughter.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have called the police.”
“He said he had records that made me look guilty.”
“You were guilty of something.”
“Yes.”
That single word stopped Travis.
Lorraine looked at him.
“I signed things I should not have signed.”
She swallowed.
“I accepted money I should not have accepted.”
She wiped a tear angrily.
“I lied to your father.”
“About what?”
“About Naomi.”
Her shoulders folded inward.
“And when everything began collapsing, Victor made me believe that if the police came, I would lose all of you.”
Travis’s voice went cold.
“So you chose us over her.”
Lorraine looked broken.
“Yes.”
I thought about Zia.
About a place card labeled Guest.
About a candle tagged To Travis’s Girl.
Suddenly Lorraine’s cruelty toward my daughter carried another shadow.
A woman who once refused to claim her own child was repeating the same violence in miniature.
Naming children as almost family.
Keeping them outside the circle.
“Is that why you hated Zia?” I asked.
Lorraine looked startled.
“I never hated her.”
“You erased her.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of a seven-year-old?”
“Of what she represented.”
The answer made me furious.
“What does that mean?”
“She wasn’t Travis’s.”
“So?”
Lorraine looked at her son.
“I watched Walter choose Naomi immediately.”
Travis frowned.
“He wasn’t her father.”
“No.”
“But he said blood didn’t matter.”
My skin prickled.
“He wanted to bring Naomi home?”
“Yes.”
Lorraine stared at her hands.
“He said if I could abandon my own daughter because I was afraid of what people thought, then I had learned nothing about being a mother.”
Travis’s face changed.
“That sounds like Dad.”
“I hated him for saying it.”
She looked at me.
“Then Travis married you.”
“And Zia reminded you of Naomi.”
“Yes.”
“Because Travis chose a child who wasn’t biologically his.”
“Yes.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“So every time you called her Travis’s girl, you were punishing her for something that happened before she was born.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I did not think of it that way.”
“That does not make it less true.”
Lorraine began crying quietly.
I felt no satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
Travis looked at the photograph again.
“What happened after the gas station?”
Lorraine’s face went pale.
“Aaron said Naomi had hidden copies of everything.”
“Where?”
“He wouldn’t tell us.”
“Did Victor follow him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“You followed my husband?”
“Walter did.”
“You were with him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Aaron left before we finished talking.”
“What was left to talk about?”
“He said he had seen Naomi.”
Lorraine’s voice broke.
“Alive.”
Travis stopped moving.
“When?”
“The day before.”
“Where?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“He was protecting her.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“We followed him because I begged Walter to.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know where Naomi was.”
I stared at her.
“Did you reach him?”
“No.”
“Then why was Walter’s car damaged?”
Lorraine looked terrified again.
“Because someone hit us.”
My breath stopped.
“What?”
“A dark SUV.”
“When?”
“About twenty minutes after we left the gas station.”
“Where?”
“County Road 14.”
The same road where Walter’s car was found.
“Who was driving?”
“Walter.”
“Did you crash?”
“The SUV clipped us.”
“Was that why the airbag deployed?”
“Yes.”
“And the blood?”
“Mine.”
She touched the side of her forehead unconsciously.
“I struck the window.”
“Why abandon the car?”
“Because we saw the SUV turn around.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did you do?”
“We ran.”
“In the snow?”
“It was raining.”
Of course.
Aaron’s crash night.
Rain.
Cold.
A slick road.
“What happened to the SUV?”
“We hid in a drainage culvert.”
Lorraine closed her eyes.
“It stopped beside Walter’s car.”
“Did you see who got out?”
“No.”
“Did Walter?”
“Yes.”
Travis leaned forward.
“Who?”
Lorraine looked at him.
“He never told me.”
“What?”
“He saw someone.”
“And wouldn’t tell you?”
“Not then.”
“When did he?”
“Two days later.”
“Who was it?”
Lorraine looked at me.
“Celia Grant.”
The house manager.
The woman photographed carrying boxes for Victor.
I felt something shift.
“Why would Celia chase you?”
“Because she worked for Victor.”
“Then why did Walter keep it secret?”
“He said we needed proof.”
“And Aaron?”
Lorraine began shaking again.
“We heard about his crash after sunrise.”
“Did you go to police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Walter wanted to.”
“But?”
“Victor called us first.”
A sick silence followed.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Lorraine closed her eyes.
“He said, ‘One investigator is dead.’”
My nails dug into my palm.
“And then?”
“He said, ‘Decide whether you want your daughter to be next.’”
I stared at her.
“Naomi.”
Lorraine nodded.
“And you stayed silent.”
“Yes.”
“For six years.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me raise Zia alone.”
“I didn’t know who you were at first.”
“But you learned.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Her eyes met mine.
“Before Travis met you.”
My voice dropped.
“How?”
“Walter found you.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“And the photograph outside my apartment?”
“I went with him.”
“Victor was beside you.”
Lorraine shook her head quickly.
“That photograph is misleading.”
“Then explain it.”
“Victor arrived after us.”
“Why?”
“He had followed Walter.”
“So all three of you stood outside my home?”
“Yes.”
“With my two-year-old daughter inside?”
“Yes.”
I felt ill.
“What did Victor want?”
“To know whether Aaron had left me anything.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
“Did Walter?”
“No.”
“Then why did you never warn me?”
Lorraine’s silence answered.
Cowardice.
Fear.
Self-protection.
All the same ingredients that had shaped every choice she made.
Travis stared at her.
“You knew my wife’s husband died because of this family’s secrets.”
“I suspected.”
“And then I married her.”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
He laughed once.
“You watched us fall in love.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me become Zia’s father.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of seeing that as a chance to finally do the right thing, you punished a child.”
Lorraine began to cry harder.
“I know.”
“No.”
His voice was deadly calm.
“You know now because you lost the house.”
Lorraine looked up.
“That isn’t why I came.”
“Then why?”
She pulled a small envelope from her coat pocket.
“Because someone left this on my windshield last night.”
Travis took it.
Inside was a photograph of Zia leaving school.
My stomach dropped.
The image had been taken from across the street.
On the back, five words were written.
THE BLUEBIRD SHOULD HAVE STAYED HIDDEN.
I could barely breathe.
“Who took this?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“The coat she’s wearing.”
Travis looked closer.
“She wore that Monday.”
Four days earlier.
Before the red box.
Before Lorraine knew we had found anything.
Someone had been watching Zia already.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph arrived.
It showed our house.
Taken from the street.
Time stamped three minutes earlier.
A second message followed.
You found Aaron’s drive.
Travis looked toward the window.
I did too.
A dark SUV sat across the street.
May you like
Its engine was running.
And behind the windshield, someone lifted a phone and took another picture of us.
