Chapter 17
I asked Alexander for help without telling him everything because I did not know whom he could trust, and I feared Charles monitored him closely.
If Alexander gives you this key, then he kept his promise.
Do not blame him for what he did not know.
My eyes stung.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
And stopped.
Every nerve in my body seemed to awaken.
I read the sentence once.
Then again.
“No,” I whispered.
Dana leaned closer.
“What?”
I couldn’t speak.
Alexander walked toward me, then stopped several feet away.
“Clara?”
I handed him the letter.
His eyes moved across the final lines.
His cane slipped from his hand and struck the floor.
The sound echoed through the room.
Because my mother had written:
There is one final truth I have hidden from everyone.
Daniel Bennett was the father who raised you, loved you, and gave you his name.
But he was not your biological father.
I stared at Alexander.
He stared back at me.
Dana’s face went completely still.
There was one more line beneath it.
A line Alexander had not yet reached.
I took the letter from his hands and read it aloud.
“Your biological father’s identity is recorded on the drive. Before you judge him, learn why I asked him to stay away.”
The clerk slowly looked toward the computer where the copied flash drive waited.
Alexander’s face had lost all color.
And for the first time since he stepped out of that black SUV in the rain, I realized he might not have come into my life simply because he had made a promise to my mother.
He might have been part of the secret she had been protecting me from all along.
Chapter 4: The father I never knew
The flash drive sat on the conference table between us.
It was small enough to disappear inside my palm.
That was the strangest part.
Twenty-four years of unanswered questions.
My father’s death.
My mother’s fear.
Alexander’s promise.
A secret trust.
A hidden identity.
All of it reduced to a silver rectangle no bigger than my thumb.
The court-appointed clerk looked at me from behind the computer.
“Ms. Bennett, the drive has been copied and logged. The original will remain in secure custody unless the court orders otherwise.”
I barely heard him.
My eyes were still on Alexander.
He had not moved since reading my mother’s letter.