Chapter 9
I read the letter twice.
Three times.
Unable to believe what I was seeing.
Sarah,
If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. Or in a hospital. Or somewhere worse.
I know you hate me. And you have every right. I’ve done terrible things to you. Things I can never make right. Things I will regret for the rest of my life, however long that is.
But there’s one thing you need to know.
One truth I’ve been hiding from everyone.
Even Lauren.
Even Gallo.
The baby isn’t mine.
I stared at the words.
The baby isn’t mine.
I read on.
Lauren was pregnant when we met. She didn’t know it at first. When she found out, she was scared. The real father was married. Powerful. Dangerous. He would have never left his wife. Would have never acknowledged the child. Might have hurt her to keep her quiet.
I told her I would claim it.
Take care of her.
Take care of the baby.
It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Then I got in deep with Gallo. And the money looked like the only way out. For all of us.
I know this doesn’t excuse anything I did.
Stealing from you.
Cheating.
Lying.
All of it was wrong.
All of it was me.
But the baby?
He’s innocent.
And Lauren?
She’s made mistakes. Big ones. But she doesn’t deserve what Gallo will do to her.
Or what I’ve done to her.
I’m writing this because I know there’s a good chance I won’t survive the next few days. Gallo isn’t going to let me testify. And if I’m gone, Lauren has no one.
You’re the only person who can help her.
The only person with the money.
The power.
The strength.
Please, Sarah.
Don’t let my son—this boy—grow up without a chance.
He doesn’t have to be part of our mess.
He can have a good life.
A real life.
You’re the only one who can give that to him.
I’m sorry.
For everything.
Daniel
I lowered the letter.
The baby wasn’t Daniel’s.
All of this.
The cake.
The second marriage.
The twelve million dollars.
The gambling.
Gallo.
The warehouse.
The shootout at the police station.
The Pegram house.
All of it.
And the baby at the center of everything wasn’t even his.
“Mrs. Carter?” the DA said. “Are you okay?”
I looked at him.
Handed him the letter.
“Read this.”
He read it.
His eyebrows went up.
“Wow.”
“Wow is right.”
“This changes things,” he said.
“Does it?” I said. “Daniel still stole from me. Still cheated. Still lied. Still got involved with criminals. The fact that the baby isn’t his just makes him more of an idiot. He risked everything—his freedom, his life, my life—for a child that wasn’t even his blood.”
“Or it makes him something else,” the DA said quietly. “A man who was trying to do one decent thing. In his own, completely messed up way.”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t know what to think.
I stood up.
“I need to see Lauren.”
The DA stood with me.
“Are you sure? After reading that?”
“I’m sure.”
I walked to Lauren’s room.
The guards Maya had hired nodded at me as I passed.
I knocked softly.
“Come in.”
Her voice was weak.
I opened the door.
She was sitting up in bed.
Eating Jell-O.
The monitors were still beeping.
But she looked better.
Cleaner.
The bruises were already starting to fade to yellow.
“Sarah,” she said, putting the Jell-O down. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Did they find Gallo?”
“Not yet,” I said.
I pulled the chair up to her bed.
Held out the letter.
“Daniel wrote this. The police found it tonight. In the Pegram house.”
She took it.
Her hands trembled as she read.
Her face went through a dozen emotions.
Shock.
Anger.
Sadness.
Finally, resignation.
She lowered the letter.
“I was wondering how long he would keep that secret.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew,” she said. “It’s my baby. I know who the father is. I just didn’t know Daniel had written it down. Or told anyone.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “The real father.”
Lauren was quiet.
She looked at her hands.
“His name is Mark Hastings,” she said. “He’s a state senator. From Memphis. I worked on his campaign two years ago. We had an affair. Six months. I got pregnant. I told him. He gave me five thousand dollars and told me to get an abortion. Said if I told anyone, he’d ruin me. That no one would believe the word of a campaign worker over a United States senator.”
She paused.
Swallowed hard.
“That’s when Daniel stepped in. We’d just started seeing each other. He said he’d pretend the baby was his. Marry me. Take care of us. Give the baby his name. A real family. He said he was tired of being the guy who only did things for himself. He wanted to do something good. For once.”
She looked at me.
“I know what you’re thinking. That I used him. That I let him take the fall for someone else’s baby. And maybe I did. But what choice did I have? I was twenty-six. Pregnant. Alone. A senator who could destroy me with one phone call. Daniel was my only way out.”
“Does he know?” I said. “The senator. That the baby isn’t Daniel’s?”
Lauren shook her head.
“No one knows. Just me. And Daniel. And now you.”
I stood up.
Walked to the window.
Looked out at the parking lot.
So many lies.
Layer upon layer.
Everyone had secrets.
Daniel.
Lauren.
The senator.
Gallo.
Even me, in my own way.
“What are you going to do?” Lauren asked.
Her voice was small.
Scared.
“About the letter. About the baby.”
I turned back to her.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing?”
“The DA doesn’t need this for the case,” I said. “Daniel’s testimony is enough. Yours is enough. The ledgers are enough. Who the baby’s father is doesn’t matter to the Gallo investigation. And as for the senator… that’s between you and him. And Daniel. I’m not going to out anyone. I’m not going to ruin any more lives. I’ve had enough of ruining things for a lifetime.”
Lauren let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for years.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“But there’s one condition,” I said.
“Anything.”
“When this is all over,” I said. “You tell that boy the truth. When he’s old enough. He deserves to know who his father is. And he deserves to know that Daniel Carter—for all his many, many faults—loved him enough to die for him. That’s the only part of this whole mess that was even close to honorable. Don’t take that away from him.”
Tears streamed down Lauren’s face.
“I will,” she said. “I promise.”
I walked to the door.
“Sarah?”
I stopped.
“For what it’s worth,” she said. “Daniel really did love you. In his own broken way. He talked about you all the time. How kind you were. How smart. How you’d built this life for yourself and never even realized how amazing you were. He said he married you because you were everything he wanted to be. And then he hated you for it. Because he knew he’d never be good enough. Not really.”
I didn’t answer.
I walked out.
Closed the door softly behind me.
I found my father in the hallway.
He was wearing a sling.
Pale.
But standing.
“Ready to go home?” he asked.
“Almost,” I said. “There’s one more person I need to see.”
I walked to the ICU.
Daniel was in there.
Sedated.
Tubes everywhere.
His hand was bandaged.
Ribs wrapped.
Face swollen beyond recognition.
I stood at the foot of his bed.
Stared at him.
The man I had married.
The man who had destroyed my life.
The man who had tried to save a baby that wasn’t even his.
People were complicated.
That was the lesson of the last five days.
No one was all good.
No one was all bad.
We were all just people.
Making choices.
Good ones.
Bad ones.
Terrible ones.
And living with the consequences.
“I don’t forgive you,” I said quietly to the unconscious man. “Not for any of it. But I understand you now. A little. And I hope when you wake up, you get the chance to be the man you tried to be at the end. The one who was willing to die for a child that wasn’t his. That guy wasn’t half bad.”
I turned and left.
My father was waiting.
We walked out to the car together.
The sun was coming up.
Another day.
“Where to now?” my father asked.
“Home,” I said. “I want to take a shower. Sleep for a week. And then I want to start figuring out what comes next.”
He smiled.
“Sounds like a plan.”
We drove home.
The reporters were gone.
The helicopters were gone.
For the first time in days, the house was quiet.
Peaceful.
I went upstairs.
Showered.
Put on clean clothes.
And lay down on the guest room bed.
Sleep came almost instantly.
I dreamed of nothing.
No Daniel.
No Lauren.
No Gallo.
Just darkness.
And rest.
I was woken by the sound of my phone ringing.
Loud.
Insistent.
I checked the caller ID.
The DA.
I answered.
“Hello?”
“We got him,” he said.
“Gallo?”
“Anthony Gallo,” he said. “The dogs tracked him to a hunting cabin ten miles from the Pegram house. He was hiding in a root cellar. Tired. Hungry. No fight left in him. He’s in custody now. No bail. No deals. This is over, Sarah. It’s really over.”
I hung up.
Stared at the ceiling.
Over.
It was really over.
I got out of bed.
Walked to the window.
Looked out over the backyard.
The trees.
The pool.
The garden I had planted the spring before.
Everything looked the same.
But nothing was the same.
I was different.
My life was different.
Everything I thought I knew had been a lie.
And now I had to build something new.
Something real.
I picked up my phone again.
Called a realtor I knew.
“Hi, Linda,” I said when she answered. “I want to sell my house. The big one on Blackberry Road. Yeah, that one. I want it on the market by the end of the week. And Linda? Price it to sell. I don’t care about the money. I just want it gone.”
I hung up.
Walked downstairs.
My parents were in the kitchen.
Making pancakes.
“Smells good,” I said.
My mother turned.
Smiled.
“Your favorite,” she said. “Blueberry. Extra syrup.”
I sat down at the table.
The same table where my birthday cake had sat five days before.
The same table where my whole life had fallen apart.
And now, here I was.
Still sitting.
Still breathing.
Still standing.
“Gallo is in custody,” I said.
My father poured me a glass of orange juice.
“Good,” he said. “That’s the last of it.”
“I called the realtor,” I said. “I’m selling the house.”
My mother paused.
Then nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Fresh start. New beginnings. You deserve that.”
I looked at my parents.
These two people who had stood by me through everything.
Who had never judged.
Never questioned.
Just loved me.
No matter what.
“I don’t know where I’m going to go,” I said. “Maybe California. Maybe Florida. Somewhere I can be warm. And anonymous. And just… be. For a while.”
“Wherever you go,” my father said, putting a plate of pancakes in front of me. “We’re a phone call away. A plane ride away. Whatever you need.”
I picked up my fork.
Took a bite.
The pancakes were perfect.
Sweet.
Warm.
Everything good in the world, condensed into one small circle of batter and blueberries.
And for the first time in a very long time, I smiled.
A real smile.
Not forced.
May you like
Not for anyone else.
Just for me.
