by JM Stewart
Her breathing grew harsh and ragged as her lungs fought to drag in oxygen. Her palms dampened with perspiration, and blood whooshed in her ears as panic clawed its way up her throat. After all these years, she finally had the chance to know the truth. Would she let her fear of guns keep her from it? The seconds ticked by as she stood in indecision.
No.
Bile rose up the back of her throat as she reached inside and her fingers brushed the gun case, but she managed to set it aside and snatch out the file. She held it out in front of her, triumphant. She’d waited her entire life for this moment, had spent years searching for this information.
Then why wouldn’t her hands stop shaking? The folder trembled in the air.
Doubts flooded her. Did she really want to do this? What if Kyle was right? Did she really want to know?
“I meant what I’ve always told you.” As if in answer to her thoughts, his voice sounded behind her, his footsteps padding softly across the carpet. “Sometimes the past doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to. Sometimes it’s something you wish you’d never discovered. Let me do this, Ceci. Let me help you. Let me be the one to tell you.”
The sound of his voice, of the calmness he always exuded when things got hairy, combined with the words she’d heard too many times over the years, proved to be the push she needed. Ignoring his plea, she flipped open the cover of the folder. The top page was a photocopied newspaper article, complete with a black-and-white picture. Her heart hammered as she recognized the little girl in the picture. How could she not? That face stared back at her from the mirror every day.
It was the headline that made her heart stop. Five-year-old Witnesses Parents’ Brutal Murder.
“Oh God.”
Her vision blurred. Kyle’s words to Chase minutes ago came rushing back at her. “Don’t you think she deserves to know the truth? That her parents didn’t abandon her? I’m assuming that’s how she must feel.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks, dropping off her chin, leaving wet spots on the page. Had she been wrong all this time? Her parents hadn’t given her up by choice? Had her parents died trying to protect her?
Beside her, Kyle sank onto the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and repeatedly dragged his hands through his hair.
She turned back to the file and with a deep, fortifying breath, dove headfirst into the article. With every word, a sense of fear unlike anything she’d ever experienced seized her chest and slowly squeezed the air from her lungs. Her chest constricted with a mixture of immense relief and unbearable pain.
The words written in the article echoed the images in her nightmares.
Numbness stole over her, and her knees gave out, sinking her to the floor. She stared out in front of her, at everything and nothing. Images from her nightmares ran like a slideshow through her mind. She sat in the cramped, dark space with the only light to see by coming through the hole in the wall. Squeezing her eyes shut, the explosion of gunshots jolted through her skull, muffled only by her hands covering her ears. The floor in her dream shook as something heavy dropped. Dark shadows covered the hole, cutting off the light, and fear gripped her as she worried they might find her. Whoever they were.
As the realization finally sank in, her entire body began to shake, and her fingers released the papers, scattering them across the floor in front of her. Her nightmares weren’t dreams at all. They were memories.
How long she sat there, she didn’t know, but Kyle’s strong arms lifting her off the floor broke her out of her reverie. Her brain in a fog of confusion, she glanced up the same moment he sat on the edge of the bed, depositing her in his lap. He looked like an angel come to save her, surreal almost.
“Here, put this on.” He let go of her waist long enough to tug the sweater she’d flung to the floor last night over her head. As she shoved her arms through the sleeves, he helped her pull it down, gazing at her with soft, concerned eyes.
Conflicting emotions coursed through her. To sit almost intimately on his lap left her torn between her heart and her grief. She felt like a traitor to the pain that still gripped her chest, the betrayal he’d put there. Yet part of her, the part that always turned to him when things went bad, ached to sink into him.
She hated this, the chasm that now stood between them. She still needed him, still wanted him, but how could she forgive him for this? “Tell me. Please. Now that Gran’s gone, you’re the only one who can, the only one who knows.”
Kyle sat silent for so long she feared he’d deny her again, but then he drew in a deep breath, blowing it out in a rush of air, and met her gaze. The intensity in his eyes sent cold shivers racing down her spine. “It isn’t going to be any better than the article.”
“Yes, but at least now I have a past. At least now I know.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm, and, for a moment, she let him, lost in the tenderness of his touch. “Three years ago, you first approached me about wanting to find your parents; do you remember that?”
She nodded. Gran had suffered from a respiratory illness. She’d gone into the hospital time and again for pneumonia, and her lungs were slowly deteriorating. This last time, she couldn’t shake it. Her lungs were getting worse, and Cecelia was faced with losing her only living parent. The need to find hers rose within her, too strong to deny or to allow Gran to put her off again, so, she’d asked Kyle to help.
“Well, I found that article not too long after I started searching. I was looking through old newspapers around the time you came to live with your grandmother. When I came across it, I brought it to your grandmother. She read it with tears in her eyes and then begged me not to show it to you.”
Her chest constricted with pain and betrayal. “Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why would she tell you the story and not me?”
“Because I forced it out of her. I told her I was going to show you that article unless she could give me one good reason why not to. And because she was terrified of what it would do to you if you remembered. She said you suffered for years after your parents’ death. Nightmares every night, flashbacks all the time. She said you were terrified of everything, and you often woke in the middle of the night screaming and shaking.”
He paused, a quiet shudder going through him, and he dropped his hand.
“After a while, and a lot of therapy, it all stopped. She said you never mentioned it again, and she left it that way. You were happy, and she had no desire to bring it all back for you. She had no idea you’d forgotten what happened until you were about fifteen, the first time you asked her to find your real parents. She said if you ever actually remembered, she’d deal with it, but on her deathbed she made me promise I would never tell you. Only if and when you actually remembered.”
He paused and drew a deep breath, his body stiffening against her. Cecelia looked up. The muscle in his jaw ticked, telling her he held something back.
She met his gaze. “Say it.”
He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and released it, the tension leaving his shoulders. “She was also afraid he’d find you. Technically, the man who ordered their deaths was in prison when they were killed. His goons ratted him out for leniency. They got life instead of the death penalty.”
A cold chill ran the length of her spine. “Am I in danger?”
“No. It’s been twenty years. If he hasn’t found you yet, chances are, he isn’t going to. You never testified in court. They were able to nail him and his goons to the wall without it. They were sloppy. He either thinks you’re dead or he’s simply assumed you’re no longer a threat. Either way”—he stroked her cheek and stared dead in the eye, brow furrowed with that stubborn determination—“you’re safe, Ceci. Do you hear me? As long as I’m alive, you’ll always be safe, because I’ll always be here. Whether you want me there or not.”
She didn’t have an answer for that. His words were hard to process. The only mother she’d ever known had lied to her. Oh, she understood why, on a logical level. Gran’s
entire purpose had been to protect her. Emotionally, though, was another matter. Her entire life was a lie. She’d known once, only to forget and block the painful truth from herself. That knowledge seemed to mock the life she’d lived, the life she thought she’d had.
Numb now, she glanced at her hands, knotting her fingers together. “Why would you promise her that? Why wouldn’t you tell me? You knew how much that meant to me.”
He released a heavy sigh. “Because at the time, I agreed with her. I did my homework before I made her the promise. I spoke with the department psychologist, who told me your mind locked those memories away for a reason. Because they were too painful to deal with. It could come flooding back, or you could never remember. She said some people go into those locked memories and never come back out. I’ve watched you walk in and out of PTSD symptoms. I’ve known guys who came back after the war. They can barely function some days. At the time, I thought your grandmother was right. That if you remembered, we’d deal with it then, but not until then.”
“Who was Gran?”
“Your father’s mother. Your parents left custody of you to her in the event something happened to them, and she adopted you right after their deaths.”
He paused and closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When he opened them again, he wrapped both arms tightly around her. Caught between grief and the anger and sting of betrayal, confusion constricted her chest. She needed him. God, how she needed him. Needed his quiet strength. But he was part of this, part of the betrayal. He’d lied to her, just like Gran had.
Desperate to put some space between them, she stiffened her spine and slid off his lap, before she buried her face in his neck and gave in to the grief trembling in her chest. She folded her arms and turned to stare blankly at the gray clouds beyond the window. “Tell me about them.”
“Your father was an accountant, with high-profile clients, the rich but not-so-famous. One of his biggest turned out to be a drug dealer. According to what the police told your grandmother, your father watched his client murder someone. Literally walked in on it. In exchange for his testimony, the police offered you and your parents protection.”
She sat stunned for a moment, her entire life fleeting through her mind. All these years she’d thought Gran was all she had. Now there was a possibility she had family out there somewhere.
As if reading her thoughts, Kyle softly said, “I don’t know if you have any family out there. I’ve been searching, but so far I haven’t found anything.”
“Did they leave me anything?” What she wanted was concrete remembrances. Their estate. Their belongings. Photographs. Something that would tell her about them. She rubbed a hand over her stomach. She wanted to know what resemblances she shared, what traits she’d pass on to her child. Deep down, she hoped seeing their faces might jar a memory loose.
“I’m afraid your grandmother didn’t tell me too much about their estate. She only said that after their death, it was sold off, and she’d set up a trust fund for you.”
She nodded. “She told me about that, the trust fund, I mean. It was mine when I turned twenty-one. I’ve never touched it.”
“Didn’t you ever want to know how much was in it?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never needed it. When she died, it hurt too much to even think about, that all I had left of her was a few of her belongings and some money in a bank account.”
Money had never meant anything to them. Gran was always so frugal, so down to earth and self-reliant, and she’d raised Cecelia the same way. Every year, in addition to flowers, they grew a small vegetable garden, everything from corn to tomatoes, and each fall they canned as much of it as they could. If something in the house broke or fell into disrepair, Gran only ever called a serviceman if she couldn’t fix it herself. It was hard to imagine her grandmother had had a whole other life once.
Then again, it was hard to believe she’d had another life once.
Kyle made a sound at the back of his throat, soft and understanding. “You might want to take a look into it. Your grandmother didn’t tell me how much, but she said your father dabbled in investing. She said he’d done rather well for himself. With the sale of their estate, I’m willing to bet there’s probably a pretty hefty sum in there.”
The thought of her parents had betrayal filling her chest again, and hot tears leaked down her cheeks. All these years, Gran knew, watched her mourn their loss and long to find them and chose not to tell her. Gran had thought her too weak to handle it. She and Kyle both had.
She angrily swiped at the tears. Damn it. She didn’t care what had happened. She should’ve been told, at the very least when Gran died. Instead, she’d had to find out this way.
“You okay?” Kyle’s voice came from directly behind her, telling her he’d followed her up. His body heat lined her back, soft and warm, tugging the part of her that yearned to lean back into him. It didn’t help that his hands skimmed the sides of her arms.
“Fine.” She stiffened her spine. “Just keep going. Please.”
His gaze burned into the back of her head, and for a long, aching moment, the room once again filled with an uncomfortable silence, so full of all those things he wasn’t saying.
Finally, he released a heavy breath. “Your grandmother told me you were barely two when you and your parents were first put into Witness Protection. You were given new identities and moved out of state. The guy eventually went to jail, and you were left to live your lives.”
He stopped, his chest rising as he took a deep breath. His voice became oddly detached, unemotional, as if he recited the details of a file to his partner. She didn’t have time to question why, however, for he blew out his breath in a rush of air and looked at her.
“Your grandmother told me she used to warn you to be careful about who you trusted.” The tone of his voice said his words were half statement, half question.
Cecelia nodded. “Yes.”
“There’s a reason for it. Your mother made the mistake of confiding in someone she thought to be a close friend. A friend with connections.”
The dots connected in her mind, and Cecelia sucked in a breath.
“That’s why she did it, why she was so adamant I never trust strangers.” Her grandmother hadn’t just warned her to not trust strangers, the way most people taught their children these days. Gran drilled the knowledge into her, time and again. Cecelia grew up knowing never to trust strangers and was always wary of new people. Suddenly everything made frighteningly perfect sense.
A shiver shuddered through her, something Kyle apparently caught, for his large, warm hands slid onto her shoulders. She shook her head and stepped away.
Behind her, he sighed, a sound of lament and dejection. “About three years after the trial, the dealer’s men found you all. The police weren’t able to get there in time. They found you huddled in the cramped space between the walls of a bedroom. The social worker who handed you over to your grandmother said you wouldn’t come out until you heard one cop in particular call out, a Detective Morrison.”
Cecelia froze. Kyle’s voice faded to a muted hum in the background as another voice, softer and more feminine, drifted through the haze of her mind. Like a ghost calling through the layers of time and space, the words echoed through her head. “It’s Detective Morrison, Marie. You’re safe now, honey. You can come out.”
Reality slanted and set her entire body once again shaking. Where had that come from? Who was this woman, and why couldn’t she see her face? Why had she called her Marie?
And then it hit her, like a bolt of lightening. Oh God. Every limb shaking, she jerked her gaze to Kyle’s. “I wasn’t born Cecelia, was I?”
Kyle shook his head, his eyes full of sorrow and remorse. “I’m sorry. When they found your grandmother, they gave both of you new identities and moved you out here.”
Her chest constricted with the pain and betrayal that rushed over her. Tears flooded her eyes, and her surroundings blurred
as her mind reeled with the overwhelming information. Her entire life had been one big lie. No one had even dared to think she might need to know the truth. What if she’d never remembered? What if she hadn’t overheard Kyle’s conversation with Chase? Would she ever have found out who she was? Would they ever have told her?
She swiped at her eyes and turned to gather her clothing from where they’d flung it to the floor last night. As she pulled on her skirt, Kyle sidled up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. “Please stay.”
She couldn’t stop herself from flinching at his touch or stop the pain from enveloping her. She turned in his arms, intending to push away from him, but was caught by the hurt in his eyes. The part of her in love with him wanted so badly to cling to him that she quaked with it.
“I never meant to hurt you. It was never my intention.” He tugged her closer and rested his forehead against hers. “Please say you forgive me.”
An unbearable ache squeezed at her chest. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and managed to push away from him. She didn’t know anything right now, not even who she was.
She shook her head and slowly backed out of the room. “I have to go.”
She turned and fled, needing to leave before he caught her again, before he convinced her to stay.
Chapter Twelve
Sunday evening, Cecelia sat with Kyle’s family around a large mahogany table. They’d met for dinner at Chase and Lila’s place this week. They usually tried to meet once a week, but with busy schedules, it often happened once or twice a month. Tonight, Lila offered to cook, though everyone ended up bringing something to contribute. Cecelia had brought the dessert, a chocolate cake decorated with edible flowers.
Sitting there at the table, watching them, she felt like a stranger for the first time in . . . she couldn’t remember when. Everyone chatted animatedly around her. Four or five separate conversations went on simultaneously. Down at the far end, Becca and Evan appeared to be having a playful “discussion,” though Cecelia didn’t know what about.
