Chương 10
I stared at the photograph again.
Priya had warned me.
She had somehow learned enough to know my pregnancy was dangerous.
Then she disappeared.
I could not stay in a hospital room while other people decided what risk was acceptable for her.
Blake seemed to read my face.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t get a vote.”
“I know.”
“Then stop saying no.”
He took a breath.
“I’m saying I’ll go.”
“To the ranch?”
“Yes.”
“With your father?”
“If Bell allows it.”
Bell said, “I haven’t allowed anything.”
Blake ignored him.
“Graham wants Richard.”
“And me.”
“You’re not going.”
“Again, you don’t decide.”
He came closer, then stopped well beyond the bed.
“You can hate me for the rest of your life.”
“I intend to.”
Pain flickered across his face.
“But I am not letting you walk into a kidnapping exchange three days after surgery.”
My mother surprised me.
“He’s right.”
I turned toward her.
She lifted both hands.
“I hate that he’s right.”
“You want me to stay here?”
“I want you not to bleed to death in the desert.”
“That seems reasonable,” Owen said.
I glared at him.
He had the decency not to smile.
Bell’s phone buzzed again.
He checked the screen.
Then his posture changed.
“Everyone quiet.”
He answered on speaker.
“This is Bell.”
A man’s voice came through.
Low.
Rough.
“Detective.”
Bell looked at me.
“Who is this?”
“You know.”
Graham.
Even without meeting him, I knew.
Blake did too.
His face went rigid.
Bell said, “Where is Dr. Shah?”
“Alive.”
“I want proof.”
“You already got proof.”
“I want live proof.”
Silence.
Then movement.
A muffled scrape.
A woman gasped.
“Hello?”
Priya.
My whole body went cold.
Bell leaned toward the phone.
“Dr. Shah?”
“Yes.”
Her voice trembled.
“Are you injured?”
“My wrist.”
“Anything else?”
“They hit me once.”
A man said something away from the phone.
Priya inhaled sharply.
“Don’t come here.”
Graham’s voice returned.
“That’s enough.”
Bell said, “You hurt her, this gets worse.”
“It got worse eleven years ago.”
“Then explain it.”
“No.”
“Why Natalie?”
The silence that followed felt deliberate.
Then Graham said, “Because Richard Stanford has spent thirty-three years making sure nobody learned whose son Blake really is.”
Blake stopped breathing.
My mother stared at him.
Bell’s face remained still.
Graham continued.
“And those twins proved Richard’s lie was finally coming apart.”
The call ended.
No one moved.
Blake looked at me.
Then at the tablet.
Then at Bell.
His voice came out barely above a whisper.
“What lie?”
My phone buzzed before anyone could answer.
A new image appeared from the unknown number.
It was an old photograph of Richard Stanford standing beside Graham Mercer and a woman I had never seen.
The woman held a newborn baby.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date thirty-two years earlier.
Underneath it were four words.
RICHARD IS NOT HIS FATHER.
Blake stared at the photograph until Bell finally took the phone from his hand.
“My mother,” Blake said.
The woman in the picture had his eyes.
Not exactly.
Something in the shape of them.
Something I had seen in old Stanford family photographs without ever knowing where it came from.
Bell enlarged the image.
“Name?”
“Evelyn.”
Blake sat down hard.
“Evelyn Stanford.”
My mother frowned.
“Stanford?”
“She married Richard before I was born.”
Bell looked at the note beneath the photograph.
“If Richard isn’t your father, who is?”
Blake shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
His voice sounded younger than I had ever heard it.
“My mother died when I was seven.”
“Did she ever tell you anything?”
“No.”
“Any relatives?”
“Her sister.”
“Alive?”
“I think so.”
Bell’s attention sharpened.
“You think?”
“We haven’t spoken in years.”
“Name?”
“Margaret Ellis.”
“Where?”
“Tucson, last I knew.”
Bell typed something into his phone.
My mother stared at Blake with an expression I could not read.
For all her anger, this was not a revelation she knew how to use against him.
Nobody did.
Blake pressed both hands against his face.
“My father knew.”
Bell said, “Richard knew something.”
“He knew.”
“You don’t get to promote suspicion into fact because it hurts.”
Blake dropped his hands.
“That picture was taken when I was a newborn.”
“So?”
“So Graham was there.”
“And?”
“And my mother was holding me.”
Bell waited.
Blake looked at him helplessly.
“You want me to say it out loud?”
“Yes.”
Blake’s mouth opened.
Nothing came.
I said it for him.
“Graham might be Blake’s biological father.”
No one moved.
The sentence felt obscene in the hospital room.
Not because of what it implied about Evelyn.
Because of Chloe.
Blake’s face drained completely.
“No.”
My mother whispered, “Oh God.”
Bell stood very still.
I followed the line before Blake did.
If Graham was Blake’s father, Chloe was not simply Richard Stanford’s employee’s stepdaughter.
She had grown up believing Graham was her stepfather.
But Blake—
Blake would be Graham’s son.
Blake finally looked at me.
“No.”
I could almost see the years rearranging themselves behind his eyes.
Chloe and Blake.
Teenagers.
College.
Their relationship.
Graham raising Chloe.
Graham watching them together.
My stomach turned.
Bell spoke carefully.
“Was Chloe biologically related to Graham?”
Blake shook his head too quickly.
“No.”
“You know that?”
“Her father was somebody named Mercer.”
Bell looked at his notes.
“Daniel Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Graham use Mercer?”
Blake froze.
Bell’s eyes narrowed.
“You said she took her stepfather’s surname.”
“I thought she did.”
Bell checked the file.
“Graham Mercer was born Graham Vale.”
The room went silent.
Blake stared at him.
“What?”
“He changed his surname legally when he married Chloe’s mother.”
“So Chloe’s biological father was Mercer.”
“According to the records, yes.”
My mother said, “Then Chloe and Blake aren’t related.”
“No,” Bell said.
“At least not from what we currently know.”
Blake exhaled as if he had been underwater.
The relief on his face made me unexpectedly angry.
May you like
Not because it was wrong to feel relieved.
Because even now, his emotions were choosing Chloe before anything else.
