by Clare Revell
Eleanor tuned them out, concentrating on the papers. She was looking for this letter her mother mentioned, or a copy of a will or solicitor’s letters. Anything that looked like it could shed some light on things or looked important. She pulled out an envelope with her name written in her mother’s neat handwriting.
Her hands trembled as she opened the seal. Could this be the letter Mum mentioned? The one about her dad? She drew out two folded pieces of lined paper and what looked like two certificates. Carefully she opened the letter.
Dear Eleanor,
There is no easy way to say this, but I want you to know the truth. Your father was a criminal. He was not the man you thought he was. Although I was strict, and you resented me for it, you were my daughter and I love you. I just didn’t want you to turn out like your birth mother, and like him. You have been a good daughter and although I didn’t say it, you made my life happy when you brought Abbie into it.
Your birth mother’s name was Rachel. I adopted you after her death…
Eleanor dropped the letter. Her insides knotted and a huge lump formed in her throat. She was adopted? The last conversation with her mother suddenly made sense. She unfolded the two official documents.
The first was her birth certificate. It named her father and a Rachel Foster as her mother. Foster…wasn’t that the name Patrick kept mentioning?
The second was her adoption certificate.
A stifled wail ripped from her throat, her hand clamping over her mouth in an effort to control it. Blood pounded in her head. She began to shake.
No wonder she hated me. I wasn’t hers. Just a constant reminder of something Dad did.
Patrick looked at her. “What’s wrong, Elle? Are you all right?”
Not wanting a fuss at all, never mind in front of Abbie, she inclined her head a little. “Yeah, I’m fine. Abbie, it’s late. High time you were in bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed.”
“That’s just too bad. You need to rest remember, and it really is late.”
“I’m fine here, thank you very much. Watching the TV with Patrick.”
“Please, Abbie, it’s been a really long day.”
Abbie folded her good arm over her chest and didn’t move.
Elle looked back down at the letter, needing to learn more about this deep, dark secret. Learn more about this bomb that had just been dropped in her lap and exploded in her face. The words ran into each other as she read. Her stomach twisted and spun as her world, turned upside down since she got up that morning, disintegrated into a million tiny pieces.
Finally finishing the letter, she looked up. “Are you still here?”
“I have nowhere else to go,” Abbie retorted.
“Bed.”
“What if the men come back or something else happens? I want Mum.”
Patrick got to his feet. “Abbie, I promise nothing is gonna happen tonight. How about I take you upstairs, and we find your room. I’ll check it out, look in the wardrobe, under the bed. We can also leave your door open so the light from the landing comes in if you like. That way if you need someone you can just shout. Shay and I are both here all night along with another agent. You’ll be perfectly safe while you sleep, I promise.”
“All right.”
“Come on, then. Say good night to your sister. We’ll find your pain meds and get you settled. Your room is right across the hall from Elle’s.”
Abbie tucked her rag doll into her sling and got up slowly. She crossed the room and hugged her one handed. “Good night, Ellie. I love you.”
“Good night, squirt. I love you, too.”
Watching the two of them leave, her heart grieved for the life that never was. How different things could have been if I hadn’t left him. She looked over at Shay. You and Patrick seem pretty close.”
“We are, but we’re just colleagues, nothing more. Patrick doesn’t have time for anything other than work. Between you and me, it’s like he’s hiding from real life.”
“He used to go out a lot. At least when…” She broke off. “It’s just you two get on so well.”
“Patrick’s an easy bloke to get along with. He’s charming, sweet, a real gentleman. It’s not often you find someone in our line of work who’s not tainted by what we have to do. His faith carries him through a lot. But even if he wasn’t married to his job, I’m in love with my husband, and wouldn’t break my marriage vows under any circumstances.”
“Your husband doesn’t mind you hanging with him or staying here?”
Shay smiled. “This is what I do. Kevin understands. Besides he’s in the army, so he can be away for months at a time. Right now he’s in Cyprus.”
“That must be hard.” She looked down at the letter in her hand.
“It is sometimes. But, Kevin was in the army when I met him. I knew what I was getting into. Just like he knew what I did. Neither of us would change it for the world. What about you and Patrick? I understand you’ve known each other a long time.”
Her fingers traced the crease on the paper. “Yeah. We go way back. I knew him, rather went out with him, for a year at university. Then I left and never saw him again. Until now.”
“Why not?”
“We didn’t part on very good terms.”
“What happened?”
She shifted, the letter creasing in her hand. “The kind of ‘ruins your life’ stuff I don’t want to talk about.”
“OK.” Shay inclined her head and her eyes narrowed.
Had she said too much? She kept forgetting these people were spies. Besides what happened between her and Patrick was no one’s business but their own.
“I’m going to go make some tea.” Eleanor shoved the papers back into the firebox and locked it. She headed into the kitchen, Shay behind her. This was going to get tiring very quickly. At least Patrick didn’t follow her everywhere.
If I could change things, I would. But I can’t. It’s too late.
As she sat sipping her tea, Patrick came into the kitchen. She smiled at him. “Is she all right?”
Patrick poured himself a mug of coffee and sat opposite her. “Yeah, she is. I told her you’d be up in a while.”
Eleanor sat quietly. She looked at the custard cream biscuit and slowly pulled it apart. She scraped her nail through the cream filling. “Thank you.” This was how it should be, Patrick tucking in his daughter at night, the two of them having time...
Patrick put a hand on her arm. “I need you to talk to me, Elle and tell me what’s going on. All of it.”
She shifted in her chair. “I’m not in the mood to talk.”
“Elle, whoever is after you has killed your mother, hurt Abbie, and has threatened you.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” She sucked in a deep breath and lowered her voice, not wanting Abbie to overhear and get upset. “I know that they hurt Abbie and killed…Mum.”
Trembling fingers snapped the biscuit in half. They needed to know and there was no easy way to say it, other than blurt it out. “Jeanette Harrison wasn’t my birth mother.”
Patrick and Shay exchanged shocked glances. “What?” he asked.
“Mum said to get the firebox, as there was a letter in there for me telling me about my father. I found it and… and there are papers in that box, my birth and adoption certificates. She wasn’t my mother. And all this is my father’s fault.” The avalanche of tears she’d been holding onto for so long began to fall. She shoved her chair back, and ran from room.
****
Patrick sat there for an instant, before setting off after her, leaving Shay to clear kitchen. He took the cups with him. He knew Elle was still downstairs as he hadn’t heard the front door open or the stairs creak. If he had to guess, she’d be in the lounge in front of the fire.
Peering into the lounge, he smiled as he saw her. “You’re a creature of habit, Elle. You’re sat in your thinking place, even if the fire isn’t on.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. She held a letter in
her hands, twisting it over and over. Tears streaked her face.
He sat beside her, setting her cup down on the floor next to her. He longed to put his arms around her and hold her, but he wasn’t sure she’d accept it. “Talk to me.”
“I was adopted. I didn’t know.” She handed him the envelope. “It says so in here.”
He took it, pulling out the certificates, and reading them.
He hated the cold dread that washed over him. Foster? No, it can’t be.
“It’s your father’s name, but who is this Rachel Foster?”
She waved letter slowly. “It’s all written out in here in graphic detail. My father had a long standing affair with this Rachel woman. According to this, it began a year after he married Mum and just carried on. When she found out about the affair, Rachel was pregnant, so Mum threw him out. Rachel left her husband and twin sons and moved in with Dad. After I was born, Rachel’s husband persuaded her to go home. She took me with her. Six months later, the house burned down. Rachel and her husband were killed.”
“Oh, Elle.” He put his cup down and wrapped an arm around her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Dad collected me from the hospital. Mum adopted me and Rachel Foster was never mentioned. Mum refused to have anything to do with the boys and Dad agreed as they weren’t his, so they went into care. It was the only way she’d have him back. But I have brothers. Half-brothers,” she corrected.
“I’m sorry. And you never knew?”
“No, not until I read this. She was very adamant I find and read the letter. It’s almost as if she knew she was dying and wanted me to know the truth. That’s why I picked up the firebox when we called in home for Abbie’s things.” She leaned against him, keeping her gaze on her hands as she held the letter.
His right hand moved slowly over her back, comforting her.
“It explains a lot. Why she kept telling me that I was the devil spawn. Along with the fact that all men are evil and not to be trusted. That they were only after one thing and once they got it, they’d leave you. She’d tell me that at least once a day. Growing up I wasn’t allowed boyfriends, sleepovers, make up, or parties. I had a friend over once. She bought her makeup and we did each other’s faces, copying an ad in a magazine. Mum wasn’t best pleased. Make that livid. She told me I looked like a painted doll. She sent my friend home and scrubbed my face clean with a nail brush. Then told me I was a hussy who’d come to no good.”
“None of that is true.” He hugged her. “Not all men are the same and you are certainly not a hussy.”
She looked down. “Yeah, I am. Anyway, you get told it enough and after a while you start believing it and figuring well may as well act like it.”
Patrick smiled wryly. He knew there was no arguing with her right now. Her grief was clouding her judgment. Never mind the bombshell she’d just had dropped on her. “That explains a lot.”
She tilted her head at him. “Huh?”
“At university,” he explained. “Once you came out of your shell, you were always the first to do anything at parties. Try new things.”
“The one exception to that being the charity bungee jump.”
Patrick smiled. “I’d forgotten about that. You made me do it as you didn’t like heights.”
“You did it though. But, yeah, I rebelled. Call it freedom from the constraints of home.”
“Freedom? Was it really that bad?”
“Yeah. At university I could be me or at least who I thought I wanted to be.”
He finished his coffee. “Did you find yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you regret any of it?”
“All of it,” she whispered.
He stiffened. “All of it? Does that include me? Us?”
“I can’t do this now.” Eleanor pushed up from the floor and picked all the papers. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you regret us?”
“Yes, Patrick. I regret all of it.”
His throat tightened and he struggled to get the word out. “Me?”
“Yes. Especially you because I proved her right, Patrick.”
He shook his head, trying to comprehend what she was saying. “I don’t understand. What we shared was—”
She reached the door and turned around. A dark sorrowful gaze pierced him, cutting him off. “What we shared was wrong. Good night.”
12
Patrick watched her go and closed his eyes.
Lord, I don’t understand this. I’m losing her all over again and I’m responsible either in part or in whole for her loss of faith and the way she’s changed. I know I still love her and that I never stopped loving her. I’ve been hiding in my work for years now, trying to fill the gap she left in my life and not succeeding. Seeing her again has shown me this.
God, if it’s Your will, please work things out between us. Help me to show her that whatever she’s done or thinks she did, isn’t unforgivable and it’s possible to repair her relationship with You. She needs You, the same way I do. She needs the same forgiveness You granted me, so that she can move on.
Pulling out his phone, he sent a text to DI Nemec. He wanted everything the bloke had on Foster and he wanted it yesterday. All of it. If Elle was related to him…
He stood and began the process of locking up the house. He wasn’t going to fail at protecting her a second time.
Looking back, he could pinpoint the one single moment, one choice that had changed his future. Not a bad choice at first, he’d had all the right intentions, but one choice in particular that had snowballed. Everything had changed after one weekend. If only they hadn’t gone to that party.
Memories haunted him.
****
Lights and loud music blasted from the house as Elle parked. Patrick smiled at her. “See we made it. No more cats or logs.”
She pulled a face at him. “You sure this is a good idea? There doesn’t sound like there is much studying going on to me.”
“Maybe not right now.” He jumped out. “But I’m sure there will be. The grounds will be big enough for us to find somewhere quiet. Unless you’d rather go home.”
“No.” She pulled out the keys, sounding decisive for the first time since they’d left. “I crashed on the way here as it is. I don’t want to drive all the way home right now, thank you very much.”
“All right, then we stay.” Patrick pulled the bags from the boot. Elle took hers and slid her hand into his as they crunched over the gravel to the front steps of the house. He rang the bell.
Garth smiled at them. He wore swimming trunks and his hair dripped onto his bare shoulders. “Hey guys. Glad you could make it. I put you both in the green room. Top of the stairs, turn left, then take the first hallway on the right. The doors are all labeled.”
Elle didn’t move. “Us?” she whispered.
Garth nodded. “You’re a couple, so yeah. We’re all sharing rooms. The bed’s made up. We’re out by the pool.” He jerked his head towards the back of the house. “Dump your stuff, change if you want to get wet and come join us. Just follow the music.” He headed back inside.
Elle took a deep breath. “I can’t share a…”
Patrick squeezed her hand. “I’m not asking you to share a bed with me. I thought Garth might pull a stunt like this, so I brought my sleeping bag.”
“OK.” It sounded like an automatic response. The shock on her face telling him this was about as far from all right as they could get.
She followed him along the ornate hallway, with its patterned carpet to the door with their name on a card. The bedroom itself was huge, with deep pile blue carpet and massive paintings on the wall. A four poster bed took up space in the center of the chamber. An en-suite bathroom opened off to one side.
Patrick put his bag on the floor. “See, there’s loads of space. A couple of pillows and I’m set.”
“I’m not sure about this.” Her hands shook as she put her bag on the bed. Her voice wob
bled and she shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “They’ll all assume we’re sleeping together and…”
“I don’t care what they think. We know the truth and that’s all that matters.”
She nodded slowly.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “I love you. Don’t ever forget that.”
She rested her forehead against his. “Love you, too.”
The party was in full swing by the time they reached the pool. Huge lights both inside and outside the water lit the area, music blasted from the speakers and smoke rose from the burgers sizzling on a barbeque.
Elle hesitated. “I don’t know…”
“Let’s just go mingle for a few, then find a quiet spot somewhere and study. We should at least stay long enough to eat something and be polite. And if you’re still not comfortable with this in the morning, we’ll make our excuses and go home.”
“Fair enough.”
“Hey, Eleanor.” One of the girls waved at her.
Patrick smiled. “Go say hi and I’ll get you some juice.” He watched her cross slowly to the other side of the pool and sent up a prayer for their safety.
He’d had a bad feeling since they left home. A warning bell had gone off in his head when Elle crashed. Another one at the shared room. And now a further one as he looked at the drinks table covered in alcohol of all kinds. They should leave now.
Garth grabbed his arm. “Come and play pool.”
“I was going to take Elle something to drink.”
“I’ll do that while you break.”
“Sure. One game” He looked over at Elle, but she seemed content, laughing at something one of the other girls had said. He headed in the direction Garth indicated.
One game turned into two, before he managed to get back to Elle. She was leaning against the bar, hair across her face, her skin flushed. Her eyes were sunken as she looked at him. He’d been to enough student parties in his time to recognize the effect of alcohol.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. Thought you were sticking to the juice tonight?”
“Hey you…” Her words slurred into each other.
