A Haunted Twist of Fate

by Stacey Coverstone

  Even though the evening hadn’t turned out the way Colt had liked, he was just glad Shay was talking to him this morning. Maybe he could set things right with her again.

  “Thanks,” he said, getting a hand from her out of bed.

  After a breakfast including small talk about nothing important, Shay prepared a sponge bath for him, but declined to bathe him herself. Then they confronted the problem of dressing him with the arm cast.

  “I guess we’re going to have to cut my shirts,” Colt said.

  “No need for that. A t-shirt will slip over that cast easily.” She asked where he kept his t-shirts. He pointed to a dresser drawer. When she grabbed one, he slipped his left arm with the cast in the sleeve first. She then held the neck open while he stuck his head through. “That technique should work with your button-up shirts, too,” she said.

  “Only if you help.” He dared to slide the fingers of his good hand around her waist.

  She stepped away from his touch and went into the master bathroom to squeeze toothpaste onto his brush.

  “I can put toothpaste on my toothbrush,” he grumbled, seeing she was going to be a hard nut to crack.

  “I’m sure you can. You can probably do everything on your own.” She handed him the paste and brush and left the room.

  He sighed, knowing he’d ticked her off again. When he stepped into the living room, she was on her cell phone.

  “I’m calling my godfather again,” she whispered, with her hand over the mouthpiece. “I haven’t heard back, which isn’t like him. Any time I’ve ever called in the past, he’s always gotten right back to me. I hope he’s not sick and Karen’s not telling me.”

  Colt sat in the chair across from Shay. She put the phone on speaker. A female voice came on the line.

  “Good morning. Lee Stansbury’s office.”

  “Good morning, Karen. This is Shay Brennan calling again.”

  “Oh. Hello, Shay.” Karen’s voice immediately went flat.

  “Lee hasn’t returned my call yet. Is he in?”

  “Uh. Let me check.”

  “Something’s not right,” Shay whispered. “Karen has never sounded so distant and impolite.” Karen returned to the line in a few seconds to say Lee was unavailable.

  It was obvious by the turn of her mouth that Shay’s patience had run thin. “Please interrupt him and tell him no excuses this time. I need to speak to him now.”

  Lee must have understood the seriousness of her demand to talk to him, because he came on the line within moments.

  “Hello, Shay. How are you, dear? It’s been a while.”

  When she switched the phone off speaker and hesitated before answering, Colt got the hint and exited the room.

  “I’m well, Lee.” There was no point in chit-chat. Now that she’d finally reached him, she felt an urgent need to discuss Alicia Averill and her parents. “I’ve called twice,” she pointed out. “Did you receive my messages?”

  “Yes. I apologize for not returning your calls. I’ve been in court.”

  Karen hadn’t mentioned that before and Shay didn’t believe it. “No matter,” she said, letting it go and moving on to the reason for the call. “I’m in South Dakota, and I’ve met a man by the name of Frank Averill. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  “Averill? No. Should it?”

  “Yes. My parents paid for the funeral and headstone of Frank Averill’s daughter, Alicia, in Chicago, in 1977. I’m sure you were aware of that.” She could practically hear the shoe drop on the other end of the line. “There’s no use denying it,” she continued, sensing she’d struck a nerve. “My parents didn’t make a move, financial or otherwise, without you knowing about it.”

  She could feel the anger rising in her like a kettle set to boil. Lee was hiding something. She felt it in her bones.

  “Averill,” he mulled. “Seems I do recall the name, now that you’ve refreshed my memory.”

  “Let me refresh it even more. I’ve learned that my parents paid for many funerals throughout the years, which was something I was totally unaware of until recently. Do you have any idea why they’d hide that from me?”

  “I don’t know, Shay. Parents don’t always tell their children everything.”

  “True, but they didn’t start that practice until 1977. Alicia Averill was the first. What I don’t understand is, why her? Alicia had parents. There was no reason for strangers to have buried her. Why did my parents think they had the right to take it upon themselves to bury someone else’s child without their permission? Without them even knowing what was going on?”

  Colt obviously heard her raised voice and sensed her agitation, because he reentered the room and mouthed the words, “Stay calm.”

  She nodded and took a deep breath before going on. “Lee, I need to know how my parents knew Alicia Averill. I don’t want lies. I have to know the truth.”

  A long silence followed. Shay could hear him breathing, so she knew he was still there.

  “I have a right to know,” she prodded. Remembering Colt’s suggestion from the other day about using the sympathy card, she added, “You’re my godfather. You’ve always been there for me when I needed you. I need you now. My parents are gone. You’re the only one I can turn to. This is very important. You have to tell me what you know.”

  “How did you run across Frank Averill?” he finally asked.

  “That doesn’t matter. The fact is, I did meet him, and somehow he and I are connected. My folks are gone. Chief McGinty is dead. You’re probably the only person who knows the truth.”

  “McGinty? How do you know about him?” Lee’s voice cracked.

  Shay ignored his question. “How did my parents know Alicia Averill?” she repeated.

  Lee sighed. “Alex and Grace are gone. There’s no good that can come from opening up a can of old worms. Why do you want to know about Alicia Averill?”

  Shay gritted her answer through pursed lips while pumping her fist in frustration. “Because I look just like her, Lee. We could be sisters. My parents buried her the same year I was born. That’s more than chance. I’m a grown woman, and I deserve to know what was going on back then.”

  After another long pause, he said, “I have to go, Shay. I’ll call you back soon.”

  “No! Don’t hang up!”

  The phone went dead, and she flipped her cell phone shut and threw it on the floor. She could have spat nails, she was so angry.

  “The jerk hung up on you?” Colt asked.

  “Yes. He was so close to telling me! What kind of secret could hold so much power over him all these years later?”

  “I don’t know. What were his last words before he hung up?”

  “He said he’d call me back soon.”

  “Okay. That’s hopeful. Maybe he just needs a little time to get his thoughts together, or to check his facts before he goes off half-cocked.”

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes. “Do you really think so?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter much. I’m sure the guy will call back when he’s ready.”

  “I don’t know if I have the patience to wait. What if it takes him another day or two?”

  “Then you wait a day or two,” Colt said. “Good things come to those who wait. Or so I’ve heard.”

  Only yesterday she’d asked him for patience. Their gazes locked. He was absolutely right. She’d sit tight and wait.

  Forty-Five

  “I want to go to my office,” Colt said, jerking his truck keys off the foyer table.

  “You don’t think you’re driving, do you?” Shay leaped up from the sofa.

  He acted like he hadn’t heard her and moved to the door.

  “Did the doctor say you could?”

  “Dammit,” he complained. “He did suggest I stay out from behind the wheel since my truck is a stick. But I don’t want to be chauffeured wherever I need to go. And I can’t sit around here. I’ll go stir crazy.”

  “It’s only for three weeks. Besides,
if it’s not against the law, I’m pretty sure you’ll get behind the wheel way before that. Why do you have to go to the office today? Your appointments have been rescheduled. You should rest some more.”

  “I’m tired of resting. I need to get out of this house.”

  She sensed he needed to get away from her, too, but that wasn’t happening. He could wreck his truck with his arm in the cast. “I’ll drive you,” she said, grabbing her purse from the kitchen.

  Mumbling under his breath, Colt acquiesced and locked the door behind them and then stomped down the steps toward Shay’s car.

  When they entered his office in short time, Norma was working at her desk for a change. They greeted each other, and she was inspecting Colt’s arm cast when Shay’s cell phone rang.

  “Excuse me.” Shay stepped away from the conversation. “Hello.”

  “Shay, this is Lee.”

  She felt her eyes widen. “Lee!”

  “I want to apologize for hanging up so quickly this morning.”

  Tingles raced across her nape and down her back. “It’s all right. I appreciate your calling back so fast. You must know how anxious I am to hear what you have to say. You do have something to tell me, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I do.” After a moment’s vacillation he said, “There’s something you need to read. Do you have a computer? I can scan this and email it to you, or if you have access to a fax machine, I can send it that way.”

  She looked at Colt, who must have heard her mention Lee’s name. He stared at her and listened to her end of the dialogue. “Hold on, Lee.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Do you have a fax machine?”

  Norma wrote the number on a slip of paper and handed it to her. Shay read it off to Lee.

  “I’ll fax this right now,” he said. “After you read it, feel free to call me back if you have any questions. I’ll keep my line open, and I’ll tell you anything more you want to know.”

  Her heart beat fast. “What exactly is it you’re faxing me?”

  “It’s a letter written by your mother.”

  When the piercing screech of the fax machine sounded, Norma excused herself, saying she had some errands to run.

  “I can leave, too, if you want privacy,” Colt said.

  “No. I’d like you to stay. You’re invested in learning the truth, too. I wouldn’t have contacted Lee if it weren’t for you.”

  “Okay.” He wheeled out the chair from behind his desk and took a seat. Shay stood over the fax machine watching the pages slip out. Her hands trembled when she picked them up.

  “I’m not sure I want to read this after all,” she admitted, recognizing the familiar slanted handwriting that had been her mother’s. She felt her lip quivering as she glanced at Colt.

  “Do you want to know the truth, no matter how difficult it may be to hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go ahead. Read the letter. I’m here for moral support.”

  Shay sat in the chair in front of Colt’s desk, took a deep breath, and read the letter out loud.

  First, I want to say that I have written this letter without the knowledge of my husband, Alex Brennan, and delivered it into the trustworthy hands of our longtime friend and attorney, Lee Stansbury, for safekeeping. I have never once gone against Alex in all the years we’ve been married, but I do so now, because I am dying, and I feel an urgent need to cleanse my soul for the sins I have committed. I cannot go to my grave without exposing the secret Alex and I, as well as others, have kept for over thirty years.

  “Oh, my gosh.” Shay frowned. What does this mean?”

  “Read on,” Colt prodded.

  Shay continued.

  When I’ve spoken to my husband on this subject many times before, he has maintained that it is best for “the past to remain in the past.” But I cannot do so any longer. I will not rest in peace until I have unburdened myself by telling the truth. Therefore, I have given the only copy of this letter to Lee and sworn him to secrecy. He has agreed to hold the letter until I have gone and Alex has also passed away. At that time, if the need should arise and Lee sees fit to share this information with our daughter, Shay, or any member of Alicia Averill’s immediate family, I have given him permission to do so.

  Shay glanced at Colt, to which he nodded for her to go on.

  To Mr. and Mrs. Averill. I ask forgiveness from you, the two people whose lives were forever altered because of the actions we took and the lies we told.

  And to my daughter, Shay. If you’re reading this letter, please know that your father and I have loved you with every breath we had, loved you more than life itself. You’ve made us proud and given us such joy. Please forgive us. We did what we did because of you.

  Let me get on with it. My life and Alex’s changed forever on the day we met Alicia Averill. We became acquainted with her through a friend of ours who worked at a local shelter. Alicia was a young, pregnant girl from South Dakota, who had apparently run away from home with an older man. He brought her to Chicago and promptly abandoned her, as is the case in so many similar situations. Alicia needed a job and a place to stay. My friend at the shelter thought of Alex and me because we had just lost our longtime housekeeper who married and moved out of state with her new husband.

  I immediately liked Alicia when we met. My heart went out to her for the predicament she’d found herself in. Normally, I’d request references and forms of identification and so forth before bringing someone into our home to live. But there was something about Alicia that made me forget my common sense. I knew she was a good girl who had simply made a mistake. After what she’d gone through, she needed people who would care for her and treat her well. I wanted to help, so I hired her on the spot.

  Some months later, once she became comfortable with me, I asked about her family. All she would tell me was that she could never go home pregnant, or with a baby she’d had out of wedlock. Her parents had no idea she was pregnant, and she was too ashamed to tell them. She didn’t want to let them down. I tried several times after that conversation to get her to call home, but she never would. Finally, I let it go. She was, after all, a legal adult who was free to make her own decisions.

  It was always my sincere hope that once Alicia gave birth, she would contact her family and perhaps even move back to South Dakota, where her parents could help her raise the baby. When I suggested that once, she emphatically told me she’d never burden them, and that she planned to raise the baby on her own. She asked if she could continue living with Alex and me and working for us after the baby was born. She was a hard worker, trustworthy, and we’d become close to her. What was I to do? She would never name the baby’s father, and he appeared to be completely out of the picture. I didn’t want her and the baby on the streets. Of course, I agreed.

  One night, Alicia woke me up. She was in labor, but something was not right. She was bleeding. Everything happened so fast. Before I could phone our doctor or call for an ambulance, she gave birth, with my assistance, to a precious, perfect baby girl. The happy moment turned tragic, however, when our poor, darling Alicia hemorrhaged and died moments later.

  I cannot begin to describe the sorrow I felt when I held that baby girl in my arms. Her mother was dead and the precious little babe was alone in the world. Well, not entirely alone, of course. She had grandparents somewhere far away in South Dakota, people who had no idea she even existed. She also had Alex and me.

  We had tried to have a baby for many years, with no success. All I’d ever wanted was to be a mother. Alex knew that. When we were younger and all our friends were starting their families, I would cry myself to sleep at night while asking God why He didn’t see fit to give Alex and me a child. By the time Alicia came into our lives, I was forty years old, and we had given up hope of ever becoming parents. And then this little miracle, this bundle of love, dropped right into our laps.

  Alex loved me with all his heart and soul. He must have seen that the light that had gone out of my eyes so many years
earlier had returned when I held the baby and cooed to her. He immediately devised a plan. He called his good friend, Trevor McGinty, who was Police Chief, and the two of them concocted a story about Alicia having been killed in a car accident. Trevor put his career on the line by writing up a fraudulent police report. Alex then paid an undertaker by the name of Smith to prepare a death certificate so that no doctors or hospitals had to be involved. Through Mr. Smith, Alex and I arranged to have Alicia buried and a tombstone placed at her grave. Her funeral was conducted quickly and without suspicion. Trevor contacted Mr. and Mrs. Averill about the death of their daughter. We never met them. Trevor told them we were good Samaritans who wished to remain anonymous. Shortly after Alicia was buried, Alex contacted our dear friend, Lee Stansbury, who drew up fake adoption papers and prepared a birth certificate listing Alex and me as parents to our baby girl, Shay.

  The plan never would have worked if Alex and I hadn’t implicitly trusted Trevor and Lee, and if those two men hadn’t risked everything in the name of friendship. Trevor has since passed away. Lee, I pray, will not be punished for our travesties. If possible, perhaps no one will ever need to know of his involvement.

  Alex and I did our very best to raise Shay to be a productive citizen and a loving human being. And she has not disappointed us. I am her mother and always will be. But it’s time she knows she had another mother—a woman who would have cared for her and loved her as much as I have. Maybe now that her father and I are gone, if she chooses to seek them out, Shay will be able to find her other family, the Averills. I pray they will accept her with open arms and shower her with the same love her father and I did. She deserves that. As do they.

  I regret having kept this secret from Mr. and Mrs. Averill all these years, but I have never regretted being my daughter’s mother. Not once. Not ever.