Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“It’s not funny, Brock. Just something that occurred to me, and it made me laugh. The absurdity of it all.”
“Okay. You will have to clue me in here because I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“My own father,” Dad says. “That was my own father’s excuse for so long. For everything he did in his life. He did it for family. For my mother. For his children.”
I say nothing. I don’t like where this is going.
“And now here I am. Sixty-three years old, and I’m making the same excuses. We buried all of this for you—for your brother, your cousins—so you wouldn’t have to live with the darkness that our family had been through. And I’m laughing because…in the end, it didn’t work for my father. Everything he tried to protect my mother from, us from, came barreling into our lives twenty-five years later.”
And then I understand.
History is repeating itself.
Now.
The horrors of the past are resurfacing.
And I vow. I vow here and now as I stare at my father, his laughter finally subsiding, that I will never, never bury the past again.
“Tell me, then,” I say. “Tell me about your father’s half brother. The descendants who have come out of the woodwork. Do they have names?”
“Only one so far. The report came in late last night.”
“What’s the name, then?”
“It’s a grandson, or so he says.”
“Okay. Has he consented to a DNA test?”
“A DNA test may not be conclusive. We’re talking about a half sibling from two generations ago. Every family has second and third cousins floating around that have no claim to anything.”
“It’s a start, anyway.”
Dad nods.
“What else do you have? Anything?” I ask.
“A last name,” Dad says. “Lamone.”
CHAPTER ONE
RORY
I clear my throat. “Davey, like I said, I’m flattered. You’re very attractive and obviously intelligent and caring, but… Can I think about it?”
“Sure. You have my number.”
“I appreciate that. Part of me wants to say yes right now, but I guess…”
“You guess you should talk to this other person? This guy?”
“Yeah, I should.”
I need to do some serious thinking, and not just about what I might want with Brock.
About the fact that I may very well be carrying his child, and that changes everything.
“Not a problem,” Davey says. “It was nice talking to you again.”
“You as well. Bye, Davey.”
I end the call and then stroke my abdomen.
Until my phone buzzes yet again.
I don’t recognize the number, so I ignore it, but then I change my mind almost instantly.
“Hello?”
“You won’t get away with this,” says a distorted voice.
My stomach drops.
“Who’s this?” I demand.
The call goes dead.
Damn. “Hello? Hello, are you there?”
But the call was dropped. No way to trace it now. But at least I have the number. I quickly call Callie.
“Hey,” she says into the phone.
“I just got a phone call. A very ominous phone call that has my nerves on edge.”
“Okay, Ror. Calm down. What happened?”
“It’s a number I don’t recognize, but it appears to be a Colorado area code.”
“Okay.”
“It was a distorted voice. And all he said was ‘you won’t get away with this.’”
Callie is silent for a moment.
“Callie? Don’t leave me hanging here.”
“Can you come down to the office?” she asks. “I can have Donny run the number.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m still at the studio, and I’m done for this morning anyway.”
I haven’t heard from Brock today. And right now? I can’t be distracted by my growing feelings for him. Right now I need to figure out what’s going on with this phone call.
I walk the block and a half to the courthouse and enter the spacious lobby. Reception is a circular desk in the middle of the room, where, to the left, a hallway leads to courtrooms, and to the right is a waiting area for prospective jurors. It’s small, as we don’t have a lot of jury trials in Snow Creek. The city attorney’s office and the mayor’s office are upstairs.
“Hi, Rory,” the receptionist says to me.
“Hi, Elaine. I’m just going up to see Callie.”
“Is she expecting you?”
“Yep.”
“All right. Go on up.”
I ascend the staircase—it’s a circular staircase, which I always thought was off for such a small town—and walk toward the city attorney’s office.
Callie doesn’t have an office, just a cubicle, so she’s visible as soon as I turn the corner toward the city attorney’s wing. Her brown hair is tied back in her signature low ponytail, and she’s wearing a beige sweater and jeans. Casual. Nice. She’s on the phone and gestures for me to wait.
A few moments later, she ends her call. “All right,” she says to me. “Give me the number.”
I grab my phone out of my purse, pull up recent calls, and show her. “Here you go.”
“Colorado area code,” she says, more to herself than to me. “We can trace the number, but it won’t do us any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because it probably won’t amount to anything. Whoever we’re dealing with is…”