Chapter 6 - My Father’s Other DaughterI laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the mind rejects reality by producing the wrong sound.
“My father didn’t have another daughter.”
Lenora said nothing.
“Say it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My mother was married to him for thirty-one years.”
“I know.”
“He would never—”
I stopped.
Would he?
The dead become simpler when we love them.
We polish their memories.
We turn complicated people into saints because saints are easier to grieve.
My father had been kind to me.
He had loved my mother.
But loving someone did not make betrayal impossible.
Adrian moved closer.
I stepped away.
Not from him specifically.
From everyone.
“When?”
Lenora answered reluctantly.
“Before you were born.”
My breath caught.
“What?”
“Henry was twenty-six. Your mother and he were engaged but not yet married. He had a relationship with a woman named Rebecca Ward.”
“How do you know?”
“Rebecca worked for Vale Shipping.”
Adrian looked at his mother.
“Our company?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She became pregnant. Henry ended the relationship.”
My stomach twisted.
“Did he know?”
“Not immediately.”
“Did my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he support Celeste?”
“Yes.”
I sat down.
The room felt too warm.
Lenora continued.
“He paid for school. Housing. University. Quietly.”
“Why quietly?”
“Rebecca requested it.”
“Or Dad did.”
Lenora didn’t argue.
“How old is Celeste?”
“Thirty-eight.”
Six years older than me.
My sister.
A woman who had sat across conference tables from me.
Who had arranged Adrian’s birthday dinners.
Who had watched me marry him.
Who had hidden my pregnancy from him.
A woman carrying my father’s blood.
“Did Adrian know?”
“No,” Lenora said.
I looked at him.
His shock was real.
“Celeste came to work for you six years ago,” I said.
“Yes.”
“The same year my mother died.”
He understood.
“That wasn’t coincidence.”
“No.”
Lenora swallowed.
“Rebecca died that year too.”
I closed my eyes.
Two daughters lost their mothers within months of each other.
One had a father who held her through grief.
The other had a father who apparently continued hiding her existence.
“What did Dad do when Rebecca died?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I remembered something.
Six years ago, Dad disappeared for three days after Mom’s funeral.
He told me he needed solitude.
When he returned, his eyes were swollen.
I had assumed he was grieving Mom.
Maybe he was grieving two women.
Anger rose beneath my ribs.
Not clean anger.
Grief-soaked anger.
The worst kind.
Adrian crouched several feet in front of me.
“Mara.”
“I need air.”
We left Vale House.
Outside, October wind tore across the driveway.
I walked until the house disappeared behind trees.
Adrian followed silently.
“You don’t have to follow me.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
“Because somebody has tried to shoot you.”
I almost smiled despite myself.
Almost.
We stopped beside a stone wall.
“My father lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You’re supposed to defend dead parents.”
“I’m not qualified.”
That did make me laugh once.
Then I cried.
I hated crying.
Adrian knew that.
He didn’t touch me.
He simply stood there while I covered my face.
“He was my hero.”
“He can still have loved you and failed someone else.”
“That sounds like something you’ve been telling yourself.”
His silence answered.
I wiped my face.
“Celeste hated me.”
“Maybe.”
“She must have.”
“She might have hated what you represented.”
“Which was?”
“The daughter Henry acknowledged.”
The words hurt because they were probably true.
My phone rang.
Samuel.
Apparently stress had summoned him through supernatural means.
I answered.
“Please tell me you’re resting.”
“I’m standing beside a wall learning I have a secret half-sister who sabotaged my marriage.”
Long silence.
“I’m adding therapy to your treatment plan.”
Fair.
He reminded me to eat.
I promised.
After the call, Adrian looked at me.
“You need somewhere safe.”
“Blackthorn.”
“Compromised.”
“Your penthouse?”
“Too obvious.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“My place in Maine.”
“You own a place in Maine?”
“I own several.”
“Of course you do.”
One hour later, we were flying north in Adrian’s helicopter.
I should have refused.
But someone had fired at us.
Celeste knew Blackthorn House.
Raymond was missing.
Julian’s involvement remained unclear.
The babies came first.
Adrian’s Maine property was not a house.
It was a cedar-and-glass fortress overlooking the Atlantic.
“Several?” I said when we landed.
“This is the small one.”
“I dislike you.”
“I’m aware.”
Marcus stationed security around the property.
By nightfall, federal investigators had confirmed something remarkable.
Celeste’s legal birth certificate listed no father.
But financial transfers from one of my father’s private accounts began when she was five.
They continued for thirty-three years.
The last transfer occurred two weeks before his death.
$5 million.
“To her?” I asked.
Marcus nodded.
“Directly.”
Adrian frowned.
“Why?”
“There’s a memo.”
Marcus showed us.
For C. Tell her I am sorry.
My chest hurt.
Celeste received five million dollars.
Then my father died.
Weeks later, she helped convince Adrian that I had manipulated the trust.
But money didn’t fit.
If revenge were her motive, why wait until after receiving millions?
Marcus had another answer.
“Because the transfer wasn’t voluntary.”
“What?”
“We traced an email threat sent to Henry Hartwell three days before the payment.”
My blood ran cold.
“Blackmail?”
“Yes.”
The email contained photographs.
Me leaving a restaurant.
Adrian leaving his office.
Our wedding preparations.
And a message:
Five million buys silence. Refuse, and your acknowledged daughter learns how you abandoned the first.
“Celeste blackmailed him?”
Marcus shook his head.
“The sender used an anonymous account. We can’t prove it was Celeste.”
Adrian paced.
“Raymond knew about her.”
“Possibly.”
“And Julian?”
“We’re questioning him.”
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“Raymond Pike is dead.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Found in a motel outside Albany. Apparent overdose.”
“Apparent?”
“Police don’t believe it.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Someone is cleaning this up.”
Marcus nodded.
“And we found something on Raymond’s phone.”
A draft email.
Never sent.
Addressed to me.
Marcus read it aloud.
Mara, if anything happens to me, understand that Celeste did not start this. Henry did. He made a promise thirty-eight years ago and broke it. Everything happening now began with that promise.
I stared at him.
“What promise?”
“We don’t know.”
The next morning, the answer arrived.
Not from police.
Not from Marcus.
From Celeste.
At 6:12 a.m., the security gate rang.
A woman stood outside in the rain.
No coat.
No umbrella.
Blood on her blouse.
Celeste Ward.
Or Celeste Hartwell.
Marcus reached her first.
She was barely conscious.
Adrian and I watched from inside as security brought her through the front door.
Her eyes found me.
For the first time in all the years I had known her, Celeste looked frightened.
Not calculating.
Not polished.
Terrified.
“Mara.”
I stepped closer.
“What happened?”
She grabbed my wrist.
“Julian wasn’t trying to kill Lucas.”
“Who was?”
Her lips trembled.
“My mother.”
I froze.
“Your mother is dead.”
Celeste shook her head.
“No.”
Behind us, Lenora’s voice came from the doorway.
“What did you say?”
We turned.
Adrian’s mother had arrived minutes earlier with Marcus’s permission.
Celeste looked at her.
Then back at me.
“Rebecca Ward isn’t dead.”
My skin went cold.
“She changed her name.”
“Into what?”
Celeste began to cry.
“Eleanor Pike.”
Raymond Pike’s wife.
The woman who had attended my father’s funeral.
May you like
The woman who had hugged me beside his coffin.
And according to police records, Eleanor Pike had disappeared twelve hours before her husband was found dead.
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