Chapter 10
Three identical expressions of confusion appeared.
Lila raised her hand as if she were in preschool.
“But we don’t have a daddy.”
The sentence hit him physically.
I saw it.
He lowered himself to the carpet so he was at their level.
“You do.”
Harper frowned.
“Where were you?”
Silence.
I almost rescued him.
Then decided he needed to answer.
Declan swallowed.
“I didn’t know about you.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“All three?”
“All three.”
“That’s silly.”
“Yes,” he said.
“It is.”
“Mommy knew.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t Mommy tell you?”
“I tried,” I said softly.
Sophie looked between us.
Then returned her attention to Declan.
“Did you do something bad?”
Children are terrifyingly efficient.
Declan glanced at me.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I hurt your mommy a long time ago.”
Lila gasped.
“You hit her?”
“No!”
The horror on his face almost made me laugh.
“No.
Never.”
“Then what?”
Declan hesitated.
“I made her feel like she wasn’t important.”
Sophie looked offended.
“But Mommy is the most important.”
“I know that now.”
She considered this.
Then:
“Do you like pancakes?”
He blinked.
“Yes.”
“All kinds?”
“I suppose.”
“You can come Saturday.”
Apparently custody negotiations had begun.
The next week changed everything.
Declan hired a forensic cybersecurity firm.
I recovered an old cloud backup through a laptop Amelia still had stored in her attic.
And we found them.
Every message.
Every call record.
Every email.
Proof that I had contacted him.
Proof he never answered.
But that was only half the story.
Declan’s digital investigators found something worse.
Every email I sent had reached the Hawthorne family server.
Then each one had been manually rerouted.
Deleted from Declan’s inbox.
Archived in a private administrator folder.
The texts were harder.
But billing records showed unusual activity on Declan’s old phone account immediately after my calls.
Someone with administrator privileges had activated call forwarding and message mirroring.
Eleanor Hawthorne possessed those privileges.
Declan confronted her.
He insisted I come.
I almost refused.
Then I remembered sitting alone in that ultrasound room.
I went.
The Hawthorne estate looked exactly as I remembered.
White stone.
Iron gates.
Ancient oak trees.
Money designed to resemble history.
Eleanor received us in the library.
At seventy-one, she remained beautiful in the terrifying way certain wealthy women seemed preserved by rage and dermatologists.
She looked at me.
Then at Declan.
“Cassidy.”
No surprise.
No apology.
“Eleanor.”
Declan threw a folder onto the table.