“Anyway, once little Kynlee was born, shit hit the fan. There was always something to complain about for Ann. You’d think she’d be happy that her husband showed such interest in their child but nope, every little thing he did only fed her anger and jealousy.” He tapped the bowl of his pipe into the wastebasket before filling it again.
“He hung in there until little Kynlee was about five or six, but their relationship was never the same. He’d been talking to a lawyer about divorce and gaining custody of the child on the grounds that the mother never even tried to bond with her, and two weeks later, he was dead. No one would ever convince me that Sterling killed himself. He had too much to live for, and he would’ve never have left his little girl alone to be raised by that monster.”
“How do they know it was a suicide? Who saw it?”
"Take a wild guess. After that little Kynlee disappeared. It was rumored that she’d been shipped off to a boarding school overseas but no one could ever find her, and after a while we all gave up. So, is your Giselle our Kynlee?”
“I think so.” What the hell is going on? My Giselle is this other person? How could she have kept it from me?
“Where is she? How is she doing? Look, does this look like her?” He got up from his seat and went to a side drawer in his desk.
“I always keep this here. It used to hang on the wall over there, but I got so upset as time went on with no word and the cops refusing to look into the suicide, it got to where I couldn’t stand to look at their faces any longer. It felt like I’d betrayed them both. She was my Goddaughter you see, and Sterling made me promise that if anything happened to him that I’d look after her.”
He held out a photograph of a smiling man in his thirties and a young grinning girl. My heart lurched in my chest, and I felt the air leave my lungs. It may have been a very young her, but there’s no mistaking that the girl in the photograph was my wife. “Tell me everything!”* * *It was hours before I left his place feeling like someone had run me over with a semi-truck. We’d spent the last few hours piecing things together and coming up with some very incriminating answers. I was still left with the question of why Giselle had left me without a word, but I was beginning to get the picture. Her mother was a formidable woman.
As I sat in the back of my car with Jeremy taking glances at me every so often, my mind was formulating a plan and turning everything I’d just learned over in my head. So far, it seems the mother, Ann Salvo, had gone off the deep end upon giving birth. It could’ve been some form of PPD, but from what Gordon said, the timing was way off. She’d started showing signs of resentment towards her daughter long before she was born.
My interest now lay in what happened between the years that Kynlee Giselle disappeared and when we met a little over three years ago. Where had she gone? And more importantly, why was she using her grandmother’s maiden name when I met her? It’s all very confusing, but I aim to get to the bottom of it soon. If all Gordon suspects is true, this woman is a danger not only to my wife, but by extension, my son.
I’m not sure how accurate he is in his assessment that Ann Winthrop was responsible for her husband’s death, but he seems very sure. I’d left with the promise to see him and some other old friends of Sterling’s again but not telling him anything about my relationship with Giselle or that she was with me. If he wanted to, he could just simply Google my name and see that my ex-wife was named Giselle, but I’m not worried about him finding out.
The one thing he told me that had given me a start is the history behind the Salvo family. If what he says is true, that family once had very strong ties to the underworld that spans from Sicily to New York. They’d know more about making people disappear than most. Is that why she’d left? Had someone threatened her?
Where had she been between the ages of five and twenty-three? When had her name changed? Had she been hiding from her mother, and if so, how had they found her? All these questions and more were running through my head when we pulled up in front of the house.
Instead of parking, I sent Jeremy back out to pick up the stuff I’d ordered Silas to get me earlier, and maybe that is why the house’s occupants didn’t hear my approach. After everything that I’d learned in the last few hours, I couldn’t wait to see her. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, and ask her all the questions that were burning a hole in my gut. But I knew that I wouldn’t, not now, not until I knew more.