Chương 6
What kind of person could walk away from their own child.
What kind of man could choose a life without knowing me.
Now that entire belief was breaking apart.
My hand moved to my stomach.
The baby shifted.
A strange thought entered my mind.
My child would know their father.
At least, I hoped so.
I had promised myself that.
Even when Daniel left.
Even when he stopped answering.
Even when I sat alone at night staring at an empty side of the bed.
I promised my baby I would never let them wonder if they mattered.
But now I wondered if my mother had made that same promise.
And failed.
I read further.
David made mistakes.
Big ones.
He was not perfect.
But the story you were given was not the whole story.
The next line was underlined.
Someone wanted you to believe he abandoned you.
I looked up.
“Someone?”
Sheriff Dalton stepped closer.
“That’s why this matters.”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
He pointed toward the folder.
“Because Mrs. Higgins wasn’t just leaving you information.”
I looked at the papers scattered across the desk.
“What was she doing?”
His expression hardened.
“She was trying to correct something.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
“Correct what?”
Before he answered, a loud knock came from downstairs.
Both of us froze.
Dalton immediately turned toward the door.
The sound came again.
Three slow knocks.
Not a neighbor.
Not someone checking in.
Someone who expected to be answered.
The sheriff’s hand moved toward his radio.
“Stay here,” he said.
I should have listened.
I knew that.
But then I saw the expression on his face.
Not fear.
Recognition.
And suddenly I knew one thing.
Whoever was standing outside that door was not surprised to find me there.
The knock came again.
Three slow knocks.
Whoever stood outside was not in a hurry.
That bothered me more than if they had been pounding on the door.
People who were desperate made noise.
People who were confident waited.
Sheriff Dalton moved quietly toward the hallway.
He lifted one finger, telling me to stay silent.
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to tell him that I was done being the person everyone protected while keeping me in the dark.
But something in his face stopped me.
This was not the same expression he had worn when he told me about Mrs. Higgins.
This was different.
This was the expression of someone who had just realized an old fear had finally arrived.
The sheriff reached the bottom of the stairs and looked through the small window beside the front door.
He did not open it.
“Who is it?” he called.
A man’s voice answered.
“Mark.”
I felt Dalton’s shoulders tense.
Not much.
Just enough.
“You need to leave,” Dalton said.
The man outside laughed quietly.
“I figured you would say that.”
I stood frozen at the top of the stairs.
The voice sounded familiar.
Not because I had heard it before.
Because it carried the kind of confidence I recognized.
The kind people had when they believed consequences were for everyone else.
“Who is that?” I whispered.
Dalton looked back at me.
He did not answer.
That told me more than words would have.
The man outside knocked again.
“Mark, you know this isn’t helping.”
Dalton opened the door but kept his body blocking the entrance.
I could only see part of the stranger through the gap.
A man in his late fifties.
Gray hair.
Expensive jacket.
A face that looked practiced.
Not friendly.
Not cruel.
Just controlled.
“Thomas,” Dalton said.
The man smiled slightly.
“So you remember.”
My heart stopped.
Thomas.
The name from my childhood.
Thomas Reed.
The man my mother had said was my father.
The man I had believed abandoned us.
I stepped down one stair.
Dalton noticed.
His expression changed.
Not surprise.
Concern.
The man named Thomas looked past him.
And saw me.
For the first time in my life, I looked at the face I had spent years imagining.
Except he was not a ghost.
He was not a villain.
He was just a tired-looking man standing in the doorway of a house that belonged to a woman who had died hours earlier.
“Claire,” he said.
Hearing my name from his mouth made something inside me twist.
“How do you know me?”
His eyes moved to the folder in my hand.
Then to the photograph.
Then back to me.
“Because I have known about you your entire life.”
The sentence hit harder than I expected.
I walked down the stairs.
Dalton immediately stepped sideways.
“Claire.”
“No.”
My voice surprised even me.
“No more.”
I looked at Thomas.
“No more people deciding what I can handle.”
The room went silent.
Thomas looked at me for a long moment.
Then he nodded slowly.
“You have her anger.”
I frowned.
“Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
I hated that.
Not because it was insulting.
Because it felt familiar.
“You don’t get to talk about my mother.”
His face changed slightly.
Pain.
Real pain.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I held up the letter.
“Because according to this, you are not the man I thought you were.”
His eyes dropped.
“No.”
“Then tell me who you are.”
He looked toward the empty chair near the window.
For a moment, he looked older.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
“My name is Thomas Reed.”
I waited.
“And that is not a lie.”
The answer confused me.
“You’re saying Thomas Reed was your name.”
“Yes.”
“But my father was David Higgins.”
His jaw tightened.
“David Higgins was my birth name.”
The room seemed to shrink.
I looked at Dalton.
He nodded once.
“He changed it.”
“Why?”
Thomas looked at the floor.
“Because my father was a man I spent my entire life trying not to become.”
Nobody spoke.
The silence was uncomfortable.
But not empty.
It was full of things nobody wanted to say.
“I need the whole truth,” I said.
Thomas looked at me.
May you like
“You deserve that.”
“Then start.”
