Chapter 2
Nobody spoke.
Ryan’s phone landed on the hardwood floor, but he didn’t bend to pick it up.
Margaret’s face had gone pale.
Susan stepped into the house and closed the door behind her.
“I know this is the worst possible time,” she said. “But Emily may still be in danger.”
Ryan looked at her as if she had walked in speaking another language.
“My father was Robert Hale.”
“Robert raised you,” Susan replied. “He loved you. But he wasn’t your biological father.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
A sharp pain tightened across my stomach.
I grabbed the back of the sofa.
Ryan immediately turned toward me.
“Emily?”
“I’m cramping.”
His anger disappeared beneath pure panic.
He rushed to my side and helped me sit down.
Susan pulled out her phone.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
Margaret moved toward the hallway.
Ryan saw her.
“Don’t even think about leaving.”
“I need air.”
“You need to stay right there.”
Margaret’s eyes darted toward the back door.
Susan stepped in front of it.
“You ran twenty-nine years ago,” she said. “You’re not running tonight.”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I remember everything.”
Sirens became audible outside.
Margaret looked at me, but there was no concern in her eyes.
Only calculation.
“You’re making this look worse than it was, Emily.”
I stared at her.
“You pressed a hot iron against my pregnant stomach.”
“For one second.”
Ryan lunged forward.
Susan caught his arm.
“Don’t,” she warned him. “She wants you angry. She knows exactly how to use it against you.”
Two paramedics entered through the front door.
Police officers followed them.
The room filled with questions.
One paramedic checked my stomach while the other took my blood pressure.
“Were you burned directly?” he asked.
“There was fabric between the iron and my skin.”
“That may have protected you, but we need to check the baby.”
Ryan held my hand.
“I’m coming with her.”
An officer stepped between Margaret and the hallway.
“Ma’am, I need you to remain here.”
Margaret’s voice became soft and wounded.
“This is a family misunderstanding.”
The officer glanced at the iron on the floor.
“Did you pick that up?”
“I was helping with laundry.”
“She threatened me,” I said.
Margaret turned toward me.
“You misunderstood what I said.”
“You told me I failed Ryan because our baby is a girl.”
“That was an emotional conversation.”
“You put the iron against me.”
“She moved into it.”
Ryan exploded.
“That is a lie!”
Susan tightened her grip on his arm.
The officer looked at Ryan.
“Sir, step back.”
Margaret noticed his warning and almost smiled.
That tiny smile frightened me more than her shouting had.
She wanted Ryan to lose control.
She wanted the officers to see him as dangerous.
“Ryan,” I whispered.
He looked at me.
“Come with me.”
The paramedics guided me onto a stretcher.
As they rolled me outside, Margaret called after him.
“If you leave with her, you’ll never hear my side.”
Ryan didn’t look back.
“You don’t have a side.”
The ambulance doors closed.
At the hospital, nurses moved quickly.
They connected monitors to my stomach and covered the reddened skin with a cold dressing.
Our baby’s heartbeat filled the room.
Fast.
Steady.
Alive.
Ryan lowered his head against my hand.
“Thank God.”
The doctor examined me and watched the monitor.
“The baby appears stable,” she said. “You’re having contractions, but they may be caused by stress. We’re going to keep you for observation.”
“Could this force early labor?” I asked.
“It’s possible, but we’ll do everything we can to prevent that.”
Ryan’s face broke.
“I should have been home.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“She called me before I left for Chicago,” he said.
I looked at him.
“What?”
“My mother. She asked how long I’d be gone. She wanted my flight number and hotel.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought she was being controlling. That wasn’t unusual.”
He stood and paced beside the bed.
“She knew you’d be alone.”
Susan had followed us to the hospital.
She waited near the door, still holding the folder.
Ryan finally faced her.
“Tell me who my father is.”
Susan hesitated.
“His name is Jack Sullivan.”
Ryan stopped moving.
Even I knew the name.
Jack Sullivan owned a chain of private medical centers across Texas. His family appeared at charity galas and political fundraisers. He had been one of the wealthiest men in Dallas for decades.
Ryan shook his head.
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Jack was my husband.”
Ryan stared at her.
Susan sat in the chair beside the window.
“Margaret worked for Jack’s father. She handled accounts for the family foundation. Jack and I were already married when he began seeing her.”
“You’re saying my mother had an affair with your husband?”
“Yes.”
“And you were pregnant?”
“Seven months.”
Susan’s fingers tightened around the folder.
“I confronted Margaret after I learned about the affair. I told her Jack had ended it and that I was going to expose everything to his father.”
“What did she do?”
“She came to my house carrying a pot of hot coffee. She threw it at me and shoved me against the kitchen counter.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“My daughter was born six weeks early,” Susan continued. “Claire survived, but barely.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I tried.”
Margaret had told investigators that Susan attacked first. Jack, terrified of scandal, supported Margaret’s story.
Susan had no witnesses.
No camera.
No one willing to risk the Sullivan family’s influence.
“The charges disappeared,” Susan said. “Then Jack’s father paid for me and Claire to leave Texas.”
“You accepted money?” Ryan asked.
“I accepted medical care for my premature daughter. I signed nothing. But people told everyone I had been paid to lie.”
Ryan looked sick.
“What does this have to do with my father?”
Susan opened the folder.
Inside were letters, photographs, bank statements, and the sealed results of a private DNA test.
“Robert contacted me before he died,” she said. “He had learned the truth.”
Ryan stared at the papers.
“My father died in a car accident when I was twelve.”
“Robert learned about the affair shortly before that accident.”
The monitor beside my bed suddenly seemed louder.
Ryan lifted his eyes.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Robert believed his brakes were tampered with.”
Ryan stepped away from the folder.
“No.”
“He collected evidence. He gave copies to me because he didn’t trust Margaret.”
“Why didn’t you come forward?”
“I did. The police said the crash had already been ruled accidental.”
“Then why wait until now?”
Susan reached into the folder and removed a recent photograph of me.
It had been taken outside my obstetrician’s office.
I was holding my ultrasound envelope.
Someone had written three words across the bottom.
SECOND GIRL CONFIRMED.
My hands turned cold.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“It was mailed to me last week.”
“By whom?”
“There was no return address. But inside the envelope was a note saying Margaret was repeating the past.”
Ryan took the photograph.
“She had Emily followed?”
“I believe so.”
My phone rang on the table.
The number was blocked.
Ryan answered it.
“Who is this?”
A distorted voice spoke loudly enough for me to hear.
“Susan is lying to you.”
Ryan’s face hardened.
“Tell me your name.”
“Ask Susan who paid her to arrive at your house at the perfect moment.”
Susan stood.
“What?”
The caller continued.
“Ask her what she gets if Jack Sullivan’s only son turns against his mother.”
The call ended.
Ryan stared at Susan.
She looked as frightened as I felt.
Then a nurse hurried into the room.
“Mrs. Hale, we need you to stay calm.”
She checked the monitor and pressed a button near the bed.
More nurses entered.
The contractions were getting stronger.
As Ryan reached for me, Susan looked down at the open folder.
One document was missing.
“The DNA report,” she whispered.
Ryan turned.
“What about it?”
“It was here when I entered the hospital.”
May you like
Susan looked toward the empty doorway.
“Someone just stole it.”
