Light from Her Mirror (Mirrors Don't Lie Book 3)

by Becki Willis

  “It doesn’t explain why you are just now seeking us out.” Her voice held none of Makenna’s soft awe; hers was cold and flat. “It doesn’t explain why you abandoned us for all these years. And it doesn’t explain what happened to our mother!” Her words took on a shrill tone as she hurled the last words.

  “Until recently, I had no idea where you girls were. You have to believe that.” Leigh Anne stood from the couch with a lithe, graceful movement. With her body straight and erect, she moved restlessly toward the window. She lifted the curtain aside with a jeweled hand and peered outside with unseeing eyes. “Your parents left unexpectedly. I went to the cabin, looking for them, but it was as if they simply walked away. There was a drink on the table, wet clothes in the washer, the television was still on. They simply… left.” She hitched a slender shoulder, her voice sad. “I looked for them. For you. I searched for years. You had simply vanished into thin air.”

  Her story was consistent with facts they knew to be true.

  “So how did you find us?” Makenna asked.

  “We never stopped looking for you. Your grandfather spared no expense in the search. And he put his oldest and dearest friend in charge of the project.” Her voice broke and her erect shoulders sagged. “Bernard Franks,” she whispered.

  Clearly shattered by his betrayal, she visibly shook herself from her reverie and continued her sad story. “A few months ago, he told us he had located our Tressa. She was going by the name of Kenzie Reese. Knowing I would get my hopes up, your grandfather did not tell me about the discovery right away. He wanted to meet you first, find out what kind of person you had become, and if you would be receptive to meeting your long lost family.”

  “And to make certain I wasn’t a gold-digger, of course,” Kenzie threw in.

  Her grandmother had the grace to look contrite. “Yes, that, too. Your grandfather is in a very powerful position. As you well know, he may make a run for the White House.”

  “I guess that explains when we first met,” Kenzie murmured. “He enjoyed sparring with me, as if it was a test. I suppose I should be flattered, knowing I passed muster. Apparently I wouldn’t be too huge of an embarrassment to the potential First Family.” In spite of her aloof jeer, there was a tiny niggling of pleasure making its way into Kenzie’s heart.

  “Not an embarrassment at all. We are very proud of you and the life you have made for yourself. And you as well, Makenna. You both are exceptionally fine young women and we couldn’t be more pleased to be your grandparents.”

  The feeling in Kenzie’s heart blossomed and spread. It made her feel warm all over. No one had ever been proud of her before.

  Unlike her sister, Makenna grew up showered with praise and encouragement. Madeline and Kenneth Reagan had nurtured her, always supporting her and lifting her up. She had never doubted their sincerity and had never taken their praise for granted. But hearing the same words from Leigh Ann Hannah Lawrence - her blood - gave new meaning to her own sense of pride and self-worth. Humbled by the simple words of praise, fresh tears sprang to her eyes.

  “What happened to our mother?” Kenzie had to know.

  The sophisticated, confident woman before them crumpled inward. Her face aged in mere seconds, dissolving into a portrait of pure agony. Sadness gathered in wrinkles around her puckered lips, tears flowed from her grief-stricken eyes and marred the perfection of her make-up, her cheeks became hollow. Her entire body seemed to deflate, until she looked old and haggard, a mere shell of the woman she had been only moments before.

  “My Maggie is gone,” she whispered. With a low keening cry, she moaned, “She’s dead.”

  The news should not have come as a surprise. Both sisters had suspected as much. Yet the knowledge brought an unexpected pain to Makenna’s heart, and it carved a deeper notch into the empty hallow of Kenzie’s soul. Now she would never know the comfort of a mother’s love.

  “What-What happened?”

  It took a few moments for their grandmother to compose herself. She used both hands to wipe her face and stifle the tiny sobs still hiccupping from her lips. “From what we understand, there was a car accident. She was alone at the time, somewhere in San Antonio. Bernard had tracked her to the city and was able to - to bring her… body back to us.” The words were difficult to say and brought a fresh flow of tears. “It’s been twenty-three years, yet it still hurts as if it were yesterday…. We buried her in the family plot, near Sugar Hill. We searched the entire city for you, but you and your father were nowhere to be found. We had no idea where you were, why she was alone, what you were even doing in Texas. You had vanished, once again.”

  “She left me at a church there,” Makenna said softly.

  “Then it was to protect you,” her grandmother said with certainty. “She must have known she was in danger. She would have never abandoned you otherwise.”

  The thought brought a measure of comfort.

  Kenzie drew her legs up into the chair, circling them with her arms. Makenna curled up on the sofa. Like children settling in for a bedtime story, they spoke at once. “Tell us about our mother.”

  For the next two hours, Leigh Anne regaled them with stories of their mother. She laced it with tales from her own life, and what she knew of theirs. It was a bittersweet evening, lightened with bursts of laughter, dowsed with sprinklings of tears.

  Makenna made coffee and served it with packaged cookies. Now sitting cross-legged in the living room floor at her grandmother’s feet, Kenzie looked up from her coffee and spoke the thoughts that had been troubling her throughout the parade of shared memories.

  “I still don’t understand why he disowned our mother,” she said quietly.

  “First of all, I want you to know that your grandfather is a good man. He loved your mother deeply, so her betrayal, or what he perceived as a betrayal, cut him to the core. He acted harshly and not one day has gone by that he has not regretted his actions. And your father… well, your father was a genius. And it’s difficult to fully understand or communicate with men of that intelligence level.”

  “Yes, I can attest to that,” Kenzie murmured.

  With a slight hesitance, Leigh Anne Lawrence allowed her gaze to drift toward the darkened television set. “I suppose you’ve… heard the news today?” she asked softly. Their nods were confirmation, one auburn, the other raven.

  “I want you to understand that Harry never knew what was happening.” She was adamant on that fact. “And if it’s any comfort, I believe your father was innocent, as well, a victim of circumstance. He was simply doing his job, providing for his wife and family. But as he uncovered certain inconsistencies within his job, he thought your grandfather was behind them.

  “Joseph tried to spare your mother, who absolutely doted on her father, so he hid some pivotal evidence, thinking he was protecting Harry. As things grew more complicated and your father realized he was incriminating himself, he confessed to your mother what he had found, or thought he had found. Your mother was devastated. She accused your grandfather of fraud and abuse of power. Her accusations crushed him. He was beyond wounded, beyond angry. He lashed out, demanding she believe either him or her husband.” Leigh Anne’s eyes shone with tears as she insisted, “Your mother did the only thing she could. She sided with her husband.”

  “And you?”

  “Outwardly, I sided with my husband. In the forty-six years of our marriage, I have never kept a secret from him, never lied to him.” A frown puckered her brow. “Except about this. I simply could not turn away from my daughter and her two precious babies. I kept up a secret relationship with her, and I saw you whenever I could.”

  “So our mother believed her father was a dirty politician,” Makenna mumbled.

  “Yes, and she blamed him for getting Joseph involved and endangering her family. She said she could never forgive him for that.”

  Makenna nodded thoughtfully. “That explains the proof she thought she had.”

  “And why she hid it, instead of
going to the authorities with it. She was protecting her father,” Kenzie realized.

  “I don’t think I understand, dear,” her grandmother said with a frown.

  Instead of explaining, Kenzie had more questions. “You say your husband was innocent, that he knew nothing of the scam, but what about our parents’ accusations? Didn’t he check into whatever it was they thought they had found?”

  Again, her eyes glittered with tears. “Your grandfather was so utterly desolate that he failed to get the full details of their accusations. It was weeks before he calmed down enough to consider the possibility that their claims could be true. Not his involvement, of course, but that some sort of fraud was actually being committed. Again, he trusted Bernard Franks with the assignment. Harry knew it was a delicate matter that could potentially incriminate your father and further alienate your mother, so he wanted the matter handled with utmost discretion. He had no idea… Bernard assured us that there was nothing amiss, absolutely no wrongdoing, no fraud. At the time, we had no reason to doubt him.”

  “What about you? Did you ever ask our mother for details?” Makenna asked.

  “No,” she admitted. “I avoided the subject. I was trying to preserve my relationship with your mother, and I was pulled between loyalties. In my heart, I knew your grandfather was incapable of doing something so blatantly illegal, but I was afraid to push the issue with Maggie, lest she turn me away, as well. She seemed so certain of Harry’s guilt…” Her voice was incredibly sad.

  “She had what she thought was undeniable proof,” Makenna told their grandmother. “Names, dates, account numbers, even photographs. They all pointed to Harry Lawrence.”

  At Leigh Anne’s incredulous look, Kenzie explained, “Our mother left me an envelope. I’ve had it all along, but only recently opened it. It held incriminating evidence on Modern Power and all its partners. She may have been angry with her father, but apparently she still tried to protect him. She could have turned in her proof long ago. But exposing the scam would have meant exposing her father, so she came up with an elaborate plan to hide the information. She used coded messages, hidden disks, safety deposit boxes, secret keys… you wouldn’t believe some of the places I went looking for it! Colorado, Wyoming…”

  A small gasp escaped their grandmother’s lips. “Our trip,” she whispered.

  “What trip?”

  “When our children were young, we often vacationed in Colorado. Of course, we later bought a home and moved there, but that was many years later. But one day, quite out of the blue, your mother said she wanted to go to Colorado. I thought… I thought it might bring back pleasant memories, remind her of how close she and her father had once been… I told your grandfather I was going to a spa in Aspen for the week, but the truth is your mother and I packed up you two girls and went on a wandering trip through upper Colorado and on into Wyoming.”

  “Did you… did you go to Red Rocks?”

  “Why, yes, it was one of the places Maggie wanted to go. We had been there several times before, but she insisted on returning. With you two being so young, I stayed in the lower rocks so you could play, but Maggie was quite the adventurer that day. She brought climbing gear and disappeared for most of the morning. She seemed quite satisfied when she returned. She said it was the fresh air and exercise. And of course I had plenty of my own exercise, chasing after you two toddlers!” She laughed with the memory of it all, touching a diamond studded hand to her heart.

  Kenzie had trouble imagining the cultured woman before them, decked out in all her finery, climbing over the dusty and dirty rocks she spoke of while traipsing after two small children.

  Kenzie brought her thoughts back into focus as Makenna asked, “Did you visit Esterbrook, Wyoming, as well?”

  Their grandmother looked surprised. “How did you know?”

  “Your impromptu trip was really an excuse for our mother to hide information.”

  Kenzie nodded. “She probably knew it would look suspicious if she went off on her own, so she pretended to be vacationing.”

  “Suspicious?” Leigh Anne frowned in confusion. “But who…?”

  “Franks, the mafia, members of Modern Power, maybe even the government.” Kenzie shrugged. “Obviously our parents felt threatened by someone. Long before they disappeared, my father created an elaborate set of alternate identities. He funneled money into at least fourteen different accounts in fourteen different cities. He set up a path of escape, long before we actually disappeared in May of ‘91. And if our mother went to such great lengths to hide her information, I think it’s safe to say she was very afraid of someone.”

  “This-This seems so surreal,” Leigh Anne insisted. Her troubled face scrunched with worry. “This is more like something out of a movie, than my own life. It is hard to fathom that these are people I know, people I invited into my home… people I trusted! And to think they meant my Maggie harm!”

  Kenzie debated on telling her grandmother what she knew, but there had been too many secrets in both their lives, too much trickery. In a low voice, she admitted a terrible truth to her grandmother. “Bernard Franks was responsible for our mother’s death.”

  “What!”

  “I-I don’t know the details. I have no idea why only Makenna and our mother were in San Antonio. But before he died, Franks bragged that he was responsible for the accident.”

  Leigh Anne dropped her face into her hands and sobbed quietly. After a moment, Makenna draped her arms around her shoulders and hugged her. When Leigh Anne reached out her arm, beckoning Kenzie to come near, Kenzie hesitated. A part of her longed to be held in the embrace of her grandmother, but the concept was so foreign to her. That woman who raised her had been so stiff and impersonal; shows of affection were awkward for Kenzie.

  In the end, Kenzie could not resist. With a little whimper of defeat, she slid out of her chair and fell to her knees beside her grandmother. The three women hugged for the first time in twenty-three years. The moment was poignantly sweet, and long overdue.

  “I’m so sorry,” Leigh Anne whispered fervently. “I’m so sorry I could not find you before now. But I looked. Please know I looked for you!”

  Kenzie merely nodded, while Makenna whispered her own sentiments. “I’m so sorry for all the years we lost! But we’ve finally found each other again, and that’s the important thing.”

  “It’s nothing short of a miracle,” Leigh Anne insisted.

  “If only our mother was still alive…”

  After a fresh round of tears, the women pulled apart and Makenna passed around a box of tissues. With trembling laughter, they sniffed and mused at the sight they made. Wiping away smeared mascara and streaked make-up, they finally declared each other presentable.

  They were still patting their hair into place when the doorbell rang.

  “Who on earth…?” Makenna wondered aloud. She glanced at her sister. “Craven?”

  She shook her head. “I-I doubt it.”

  “It may be Harry,” Leigh Anne said. With a worried glance down at her gold Fendi wristwatch, she grimaced. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”

  “He knows you’re here?” The thought disturbed Kenzie; she was not ready to face the man just yet. She needed time to absorb the fact that he was her biological grandfather before she saw him again.

  Another thought floated through her mind and hit her with staggering force. While doing the photography session in the Lawrence’s home in New Hampshire, the Senator had proudly boasted of his family, showing her a framed photograph of his brood. She recalled him saying he had over a half dozen grandchildren.

  She had cousins. Aunts and uncles and cousins. She had a family.

  Tears pricked Kenzie’s eyes again as emotions crowded into her throat. She almost missed Leigh Anne’s admission that no, she had not told her husband where she was headed off to.

  While Leigh Ann fretted over unnecessarily worrying the Senator, Kenzie jumped to her feet and went to the door. She needed to put sp
ace between her tumbling emotions and the woman whose startling revelations had set them a-spin. She glanced through the peephole, saw the officer on the other side, and opened the door with confidence.

  “Makenna Reagan?” A smiling courier stepped up from beside the officer, holding up a single red rose.

  “Just a sec.” Kenzie turned toward the living room and called her sister to the door.

  “I don’t understand…” Makenna said, clearly confused as she took the flower. It had a simple white tag dangling from its stem with the letter ‘I’.

  “Sorry, I was just told to deliver this,” the girl shrugged apologetically.

  Makenna murmured a distracted thanks and shut the door. She barely had time to turn away when the bell rang again. This time a young man stood on the other side bearing another rose, this one with a tag that said ‘am’.

  “What is going on? Who sent these?”

  “No idea, miss. Just making my deliveries.”

  Makenna poked her head out into the hall, but Officer Larza was the only person there. He raised his eyebrows in question and shrugged his shoulders, before she could even ask what was going on.

  She made it halfway into the living room before the doorbell rang a third time. A different girl offered the rose that bore the word ‘sorry’. Seeing the sentiment melted Makenna’s heart and brought tears to her eyes. Hardin, her soul sang happily.

  Each time the door closed, another rose appeared, each with a single word attached. The same couriers rotated delivery of the next six roses that stated, one word at a time, ‘Please forgive me. I’m a fool’.

  Kenzie brought a vase and helped her sister arrange the flowers in a semblance of order. Makenna was laughing by the time she opened the door and admitted all three couriers at once, this time with roses that said the most precious of words: ‘I’, ‘love’ and ‘you’.

  Leigh Anne and Kenzie stood back and watched Makenna as she put the final roses into the vase. A full dozen of the red beauties, all with their precious tags attached. Makenna’s face was glowing with happiness when the doorbell rang yet once again. With a gleeful laugh, she swung the door open.