by Vanessa Dare
She paused, looked at me to see if I’d become upset by her words. I just ran a hand through the air. It had been so long ago, I didn’t care anymore what Victoria had thought of me. I’d known the first time I met her. She may have been the impetus to send me away, but perhaps being at boarding school, away from her and her nastiness, may have been to my advantage. It sounded as if being stuck with her would have been far worse.
“You were like, six, when she married our father?” Elizabeth cocked her head and considered. “I don’t know how she could hate a small child like that, but she did. When her mind started to slip, she’d talk about how you killed Todd’s brother, how you were a murderer.”
My stomach bottomed out. She thought I’d killed David. So I had to be careful what I said. “You were twelve when that happened. You didn’t know? What about the press? There was so much in the news about what I did. It was impossible to miss. Magazines, newspapers, TV.”
Grif came out of the bathroom wearing shorts and a T-shirt, eyed us both, probably wondering how it was going. He knew how important meeting Elizabeth was to me, important enough to enlist his help, even when I’d thought he worked for Moretti at the time. When he sat down next to me, he shifted the mattress with his weight and I tipped into him. He kissed me on my temple.
“I remember being in France with her and saying we were going to have a French tutor for a few months. That was when you went to jail?”
I nodded.
“We eventually came home and I was home schooled. Sheltered would be an understatement,” she muttered, rolled her eyes. “A convent would have been more exciting. But, I didn’t know anything different. Didn’t realize I’d been kept in the dark about so much.”
“Until your mom got sick,” Grif commented. He’d either been listening in from the bathroom with super-power hearing or he remembered when I told him about Victoria's illness.
Elizabeth looked to Grif, nodded. “Then I went online, read up about what happened. I didn’t tell anyone because the reason had to be pretty big never to talk about you. So I kept it a secret. Tried to find out as much information as I could about what you did. God, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice rough.
I reached out, took her hand. “Don’t be. Really.”
Wiping at the corner of her eye, she pulled her shoulders back. “I hired a private investigator to find you.”
“What?” I felt sucker punched. I’d hidden to keep Todd from finding me. It kind of freaked me out to know there were other people on a similar hunt. “When?”
“After I read the stories about what happened.”
“You were what, fifteen?” Grif asked. His hand stroked up and down my back.
She’d hired an investigator at fifteen?
“I was given an allowance. Money wasn’t an issue. No one paid attention to me as long as I did what was expected. Mother was off on tangents then, my father never home. They never knew about it. I was careful and the man was only supposed to contact me if he found something. Anything, even a trail you’d left behind. Unfortunately, the man never found you.”
“Why were you trying to find me? For Todd?”
Elizabeth looked as if I slapped her. She stood abruptly. “For Todd? I hate Todd. Look, I’ve got to go.”
She walked to the door.
She hated Todd? Did that mean—
I jumped up. “Wait!”
She took her hand off the doorknob, turned. When I looked at her, I saw myself, just a few weeks ago. So sad, so alone.
“Please, tell me. Why did you want to find me?”
“So I could know the truth. Whether you were alive or dead. Why you ran away. What you were like.” She paused. “What they did to you.”
Tears filled my eyes, rolled down my cheeks. A huge lump formed in my throat and I couldn’t get any words past. I just walked over to her, pulled her into my arms, hugged her. At first, she stood there, arms at her sides, stiff. I felt her shudder. Then, slowly, she lifted hers to wrap around my waist, her head on my shoulder.
We stayed like that long enough for me to get my emotions under control. It was difficult when I felt her breathe, felt her warmth, knew she was real, flesh-and-blood real and had come to me.
I let her go, stepped back. “Will you come and sit with me? Please.”
She looked so forlorn when she lifted her head, looked me in the eye.
“Come. Sit.”
I didn’t wait for her to answer, just moved back to the bed. Grif was where we’d left him, although now he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Just quietly watching.
Elizabeth returned to the chair.
“Okay, you wanted the truth,” I said, my voice strong once again. I told her about my mother dying, being sent to boarding school. About her birth and trying to get home from Switzerland. About Todd, our wedding. What happened to David, jail. Escaping. Everything I’d told Grif and Carrie and maybe a little more since she knew the people involved. To Grif, they weren’t real. Yet.
By the time I’d finished, the sun had set and the room had grown dark. If there ever was a mood killer, it was my life story. We sat there quietly. Grif just stared at Elizabeth, probably doing his usual “people reading”. Elizabeth was pretty good at hiding emotion, like I was and I didn’t know what she was thinking. What she’d say. If she’d run off.
“I understand why you left because there are days when I wish I could just disappear, but…why did you come back?” she finally asked.
I glanced at Grif for a moment, but focused on Elizabeth’s eager eyes. “I came back for you.”
Grif
The past thirty minutes were like a Hallmark movie. Two grown sisters, never meeting before, crying in each other’s arms. A sob story told of a life lost. One giving up the safety of anonymity to save the other. Screenwriters would kill for a plot like that.
Reality, however, was heartbreaking. Anna’s bleak, lonely childhood, her life derailed by a sociopath. She’d just shared things with Elizabeth I hadn’t heard before. Additional details that her half-sister could recognize from her own sad experiences like forgotten birthdays. Watching Elizabeth closely, she knew what Anna shared was the truth. Could finally understand why she’d left and never come back. Anna hadn’t just been tossed aside, she’d been assaulted then accused of murder. I pictured Elizabeth a little like Anna: strong, brave, wise beyond her years, yet so unbelievably young.
It was hard to imagine Anna at eighteen, like Elizabeth now, falling for all the shit Todd had shoveled her, yearning for attention and affection, instead being given to his brother like a whore, getting arrested for murder. I never wanted to hurt someone more than I did that sack of shit. If I could take the heartbreak from her, I would. I just had to help her find closure on her past, then just look forward to a life with me.
“You know why he’s marrying you?” Anna asked Elizabeth cautiously.
“Of course. Money’s the only thing he wants from me.” Her chin drooped, the tough woman replaced by the vulnerable teenager. “There was this guy.” She shyly looked down at her lap but I couldn’t miss her schoolgirl blush. “I…I liked him.” Her smile slipped, fell away entirely. “Somehow Todd found out about him and the next day he’d transferred to some state school in Texas. Todd’s afraid of competition, but he wants to keep me happy. At least temporarily.”
Temporarily, all right. As soon as Todd married her, who knew what he had planned? Based on what he’d done to Anna, and the lessons he’d learned from that experience, he would tie up loose ends, be more precise and deliberate to either keep under his thumb, devise a plan to get Elizabeth in jail, or ensure her death. Her father would stand behind him, whatever his plans, just like he had with Anna. Her mother didn’t even know who her daughter was anymore, it sounded like. She wouldn’t be of any help at all. Todd didn’t have any more siblings left to kill off, so this time he had to do it right. There were no third chances for him.
Elizabeth looked calm and pulled together, but I could tell sh
e’d really cared for the guy that Todd had shipped away. I’d seen my sisters mope through crush after crush in their teens. With three of them, there’d been a lot. At least they’d had each other to console and commiserate. Burn photos in an old coffee can together, but Elizabeth, from what I’d heard, had no one.
This was why Anna had been so desperate to help Elizabeth that she’d come to Scorch that night. She’d been willing to deal with the devil—Moretti and ultimately me—to save her half-sister. It had meant that much to her. Sitting here, meeting the girl, she was barely a woman, had me thinking similar thoughts. I’d do anything in my power to help her. Not just for Anna, but because this girl deserved more than what she’d been given. What she was going to get if we didn’t help. Money didn’t buy love. Safety. Security. You couldn’t buy your way out of her kind of misery and heartache.
“You don’t really think I’m going to marry him, do you?” she glared, eyebrows raised.
“I didn’t know anything about you before today. I didn’t know if you’d grown up just as…cruel as your mother or not. For all I knew, you wanted to marry Todd.”
“Please don’t make me vomit,” Elizabeth replied.
“Why don’t you just say no?” I wondered. It was rather simple. He could sink his claws into someone else’s millions instead. She wasn’t the only heiress out there. “Tell the guy to fuck off.”
Both Anna and Elizabeth froze, stared at me. They looked at me as if I asked them both to marry me.
“What?” I asked. The question wasn’t that strange.
“The only way out is to disappear like I did, or be dead,” Anna told me.
Elizabeth agreed. “I could run away, but they’d find me. My father and Todd. I don’t know how Olivia did it, hiding like she did, so I wouldn’t get far.”
She didn’t know her sister’s other identity. Didn’t know she wanted to be called Anna, not Olivia.
“I always figured he married my mom for her money, but she died so young. He knew it was all tied up waiting for me to turn eighteen. He wanted it, wanted it enough to pull in Todd, who he’d been grooming to take over.”
Elizabeth considered Anna’s words before she spoke. “Could be. Then. Now, he’s got gambling debts. Big ones. He’s used money from the business to pay them off, but the Board is getting suspicious. Todd’s obviously in on it, so they need quick cash.”
“You,” I said.
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “Yes, me. I’m the quick—and long term—cash they need to solve their problems. So if I ran away, like I said, I wouldn't get far. All that would happen to me would be a commuter flight to Vegas and a quickie wedding. My father’s off in Asia on some new deal or trying to get extensions on his debts, so Todd could do whatever he wanted. My father wouldn’t do anything to stop him since he needs the marriage even more than Todd.”
“You’ve thought about this and have some ideas on how to get out of it,” I said, watching Elizabeth closely. She was good at hiding her emotions, but I saw that quick flare of spark in her blue eyes.
“It’s all about the money. Which means Father can keep on gambling and Todd can keep on living the high life.” My inheritance when my mother dies, which is sooner rather than later. It’s not like Todd has to wait until she’s old and gray to keel over anymore. Alzheimer’s is taking care of that.”
The fact that Elizabeth talked about her mother so bluntly, so clinically, depicted how much she disliked the woman. How there wasn’t any type of mother/daughter relationship at all.
“I’m eighteen, so I drew up a will without either of them knowing. If something happens to me, I put you as my sole beneficiary.” She pointed at Anna.
“Me?” Anna looked stunned. “You didn’t even know if I was alive!”
The contrast between the two were remarkable. Anna was dark, her hair and eyes just shy of black, while Elizabeth was all California blond and blue eyed. Where Elizabeth was tall and slim, a model’s build like her mother’s, Anna was sleek curves and lean muscle. Personalities, however, were much similar. Equal toughness, wariness, eagerness to please and be loved. Whomever Elizabeth finally fell for would be lucky to have her—right after I ran a background check and had a little chat with him and my service pistol.
“What I do know is that the will would have gone into probate, which would take years, most likely driving Todd crazy and pissing him off. Besides, the company is large enough where my death would make news. I’d hoped you would hear about it, come forward.”
“Missing half-sister sole beneficiary of dead heiress,” I muttered. It made sense. For a teenager, it was smart reasoning.
“Something like that. It didn’t really matter. I figured Todd wouldn’t be able to touch the money if all of it was in probate and when you did show up to claim it you’d get to tell him to fuck off.”
Anna’s mouth fell open, probably because Elizabeth had said fuck. “Oh.”
“That would only happen if you were dead,” I countered, and that idea didn’t sit well with me. What eighteen-year-old thought about wills, probate and planned for their death? Anna’s little half-sister, that’s who. Smart enough to come up with a solid plan to give Todd the finger. But only after she was dead. They were one seriously fucked-up family. “Once you were married, he could live the life he wanted. With you alive.”
“I had a plan for that, as well. But so do you.” Elizabeth looked to Anna. “You have something on Todd. You know his secrets. You wouldn’t have come back without something really good.”
“I came back because I couldn’t let you marry Todd. I’ve saved the information I have as insurance. For a rainy day.”
This was news to me. She’d never had the chance to tell me what dirt she had on her ex. It couldn't be damning enough to bring her out of hiding because she would have used it like a weapon by now.
“I’m not sure if it’s enough though. He wants your money and nothing’s going to stop him, especially with our father’s backing. Not you, and definitely not me. He can easily accuse me again of murdering David.”
Elizabeth stood, moved to lean against the wall, arms across her chest like a defiant teenager. “Then let’s disappear. Like I said, I can’t just run away. That won’t work. But I can disappear. Like you did. No one will miss me. My mother doesn’t even know who I am anymore.”
Oh shit. They were just alike. What I didn’t need was for this girl to talk Anna back into hiding again. The only thing that stood between Anna and being free—truly free—and getting on with her life was Todd.
“We could do that—” Anna started.
My head whipped around to look at her. Had she lost her ever-loving mind?
“—but it won’t solve anything. Todd will still be out there, perhaps preying on some other girl.”
I exhaled a deep breath, surprised at myself. I’d actually thought for a moment there, a split second, that Anna would change her mind and do her little disappearing routine and take her sister with her. For that very short moment, I’d let my vulnerability take over and thought Anna would leave me. Just like Nadine. I trusted Anna, but I obviously needed to work on my issues. She’d done nothing to prove her not worthy of the trust, and I had to remember that.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll be free!” Elizabeth said, with all the naivety of youth.
Anna shook her head. “No. When you disappear like I did, you’re not free. In fact, I pretty much lived in my own little prison. Elizabeth, I was afraid of Todd finding me up until a few weeks ago. I didn’t know if he’d toss me back in jail or kill me. I had no real life. No friends. No experiences. I was scared of everything.”
I took Anna’s hand, knowing all that was hard to admit. That she had to recognize a big chunk of her life had been flawed. She wasn’t leaving, she was joining me. Joining life. We both chose to leave all the dark shit behind.
Elizabeth looked at me. “But you’ve got Grif. Look at you two together. It can’t be all that bad.”
Anna’s gaze met
mine, held. She smiled and it reached her eyes. I saw the love there, the confidence in us.
“I just met Grif last month and that’s a whole other story.”
I couldn’t help but grin. One crazy story.
“A month? But you’re in—”
“Love?” I cut in. “Oh yeah. Listen to your sister, Elizabeth. Disappearing isn’t going to do anything to Todd except let him get away with being a complete asshole. Let’s work together and give him what he deserves.”
“What?” she asked. “Bankruptcy? That won’t solve anything. He’ll just find a dumb blond—I’m blond so I can say that—to take care of him.”
“How about public humiliation?”
“Jail time,” Anna added.
“How about humiliation in jail? That would work for me,” Elizabeth offered, eyes alighting with downright glee.
“We should work together, merge ideas and fuck Todd over,” I said, although I had no idea what either woman had in mind.
“And stay alive,” Anna added.
That was the best idea yet. No way would I let anything happen to either sister.
Elizabeth grinned. “Works for me.”
I was pleased to see them as allies, working together against a common cause, which was to fuck Todd. There should be bumper stickers made that said that. Fuck Todd.
I paused, let the sisters chat while I cleared my head. Thought about Elizabeth showing up at the hotel. This whole feel-good-moment had distracted us all. The sappy reunion made us forget something crucial. Shit. “Wait a sec.” I held up my hand. They stopped talking and turned to me. “How did you find us?”
Elizabeth looked at me, blinked. “Here, at the hotel?”
I nodded.
“I have the private investigator on retainer. He couldn’t find anything on you, but I told him not to give up. If he ever found anything, he’d let me know. Out of the blue, he called me this morning. Said your name came up on a flight manifest out of LaGuardia. Same birthdate listed with TSA. Your tickets were on the same confirmation number and the hotel is under your name.” She pointed to me.
