Chapter 6
I stared at the birth certificate until my eyes burned.
Olivia Voss. Born two years before Clara. Robert’s oldest daughter. A sister Clara had never known existed. A half-sister I’d never heard of.
Who had dropped this off? Why now?
I flipped the birth certificate over. On the back, in the same handwriting as the note on the old photo, were four words:
She knows where Eleanor is.
My hands were shaking.
Eleanor wasn’t dead. Diane had said she’d died in a car crash, but that was just another lie. Eleanor was alive. And Olivia knew where to find her.
I stuffed the papers back into the envelope and ran down to Clara’s room.
The door was half open. I could hear voices inside. Robert was talking to Clara, his voice soft.
“…I’ve already talked to the best oncologist in the country,” he was saying. “She’s flying in from New York tomorrow. We’re going to run every test imaginable. We’re going to find a match, Clara. I’m not going to let you die.”
“Dad,” Clara said gently. “It’s okay if we don’t. I’ve had twenty-four good years. I have Lila. I got to meet you. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Robert said, his voice cracking. “You’re going to beat this. I know you are.”
I knocked on the door and walked in.
Clara smiled at me. Lila was curled up on the end of her bed, asleep, a stuffed rabbit tucked under her arm.
“Hey,” Clara said. “How’s your mom?”
“Awake,” I said. “Angry, but alive. That’s something.”
I turned to Robert.
“I need to show you something,” I said.
I pulled the birth certificate out of the envelope and handed it to him.
He read it. Once. Twice. His hand started to shake.
“Olivia,” he whispered. “I… I didn’t know. Eleanor never said anything about a second baby. I thought… I thought there was only Clara.”
“There’s more,” I said. I flipped it over and showed him the writing on the back.
He read the four words and went still.
“Eleanor’s alive,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I think so,” I said. “Whoever dropped this off wants us to find her. And they say Olivia knows where she is.”
Clara sat up in bed, wincing at the movement.
“Olivia?” she said, confused. “Who’s Olivia?”
“Your older sister,” Robert said softly. “Eleanor had another baby two years before you. I never knew. Neither did Diane, apparently. Or she never said anything.”
Clara stared at the birth certificate, her face pale.
“Mom never mentioned a sister,” she said. “Never. Not once. She told me my grandma and grandpa died when she was little. She told me it was just the two of us. Always.”
“Maybe she didn’t know either,” I said. “Or maybe she had her reasons for not telling you.”
The door opened behind us.
Ethan walked in, holding two cups of coffee. He stopped when he saw our faces.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I handed him the birth certificate.
He read it, his eyes widening.
“Another sister?” he said. “Wow. I thought I’d found all the secrets in Grandma’s papers. I never saw this.”
“Who would drop this off now?” Robert said, pacing the room. “Who would have had these letters all this time and waited until now to give them to us?”
“Diane?” Clara suggested quietly.
Robert shook his head.
“Diane’s in jail. She can’t exactly drop off envelopes at the hospital. And even if she could… why would she help us find Eleanor? She hates Eleanor.”
“Maybe it’s Olivia herself,” I said. “Maybe she’s been watching this whole thing play out on the news. Maybe she decided it was time to come forward.”
“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Ethan said. “Think about it. The press is everywhere. Everyone knows our family is vulnerable right now. What if this is just someone trying to extort money from Dad? Claiming to be his long-lost daughter, saying she knows where Eleanor is, just to get a payout?”
Robert stopped pacing.
“I don’t care,” he said. “If there’s even a one percent chance Eleanor is alive… if there’s even a one percent chance I have another daughter out there… I have to find them. I’ve wasted too much time already. I’m not wasting another day.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called his head of security.
“Tom? I need you to find someone for me. Her name is Olivia Voss. She’d be twenty-four years old now. Mother’s name is Eleanor Voss. I want every address, every phone number, every social media account you can find. I don’t care how much it costs. I want her found by the end of the day.”
He hung up and turned back to us.
“I’m going to find them,” he said. “Both of them. No matter what it takes.”
Clara reached out and took his hand.
“Be careful, Dad,” she said. “After everything that’s happened… I don’t want you getting hurt again.”
Robert squeezed her hand.
“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”
He kissed Lila on the forehead and walked out of the room.
I turned to Ethan.
“Can we talk?” I said.
He nodded. We walked out into the hallway, far enough away that Clara couldn’t hear us.
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said before I could even open my mouth. “For everything. For not telling you about Clara. For letting my mom ruin our wedding. For all the lies. I know saying sorry doesn’t fix it. But I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. If you’ll let me.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him. The dark circles under his eyes from not sleeping. The way his hands were shaking a little, like he was scared I’d tell him it was over. The way he’d shown up every single day since the wedding, no matter how many times I pushed him away.
“I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for keeping Clara a secret,” I said honestly. “That hurt, Ethan. It hurt more than I can say. I thought we didn’t do secrets. I thought we were a team.”
“We are a team,” he said, stepping closer. “I was stupid. I was scared. I thought I was protecting everyone, but I was just protecting myself. I didn’t want to be the one who destroyed your family. But I did anyway. And I hate myself for it.”
He took my hand.
“I love you, Ava,” he said. “More than anything. More than my own life. And I’m going to prove it to you. Every single day. Starting right now. Whatever you need. Whatever I can do. Just tell me.”
I looked down at our hands, intertwined. I thought about our wedding day. The way he’d looked at me when I walked down the aisle. The way he’d promised to love me, to honor me, to never keep secrets from me. He’d broken that promise. But people made mistakes. Even the people we loved most.
“Okay,” I said softly.
Ethan’s head snapped up.
“Okay?” he repeated, like he couldn’t believe his ears.
“Okay,” I said, a small smile tugging at my lips. “We’ll take it one day at a time. But you have to promise me. No more secrets. Ever. No matter how scary it is. No matter what you think you’re protecting me from. We tell each other everything. Deal?”
Ethan pulled me into his arms and hugged me so tight I could barely breathe.
“Deal,” he said, his voice muffled in my hair. “I promise. No more secrets. Ever.”
I hugged him back. For the first time since the wedding, I felt like maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be okay.
Then my phone rang.
It was Tom, my dad’s head of security.
“Tom?” I said. “Did you find her?”
“I found her,” he said, his voice tight. “But you’re not going to believe where she works.”
May you like
“Where?”
“Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She’s a nurse here. She’s been working on the oncology floor for six months. She’s been taking care of Clara this whole time.”
