“Yes. ” Sutherland nodded, his hands clasped in front of him. I followed the bobbing motion of his head but didn’t see any understanding on his face.
If the eyes were the windows to the soul, Sutherland’s were looking in on a vacant suite.
“My name is Holden. This is Desmond. And this…” he nudged me forward so I was close enough to touch, “…this is Secret. ”
“Hello. ” He didn’t seem to know who we were at all because my name caused no reaction.
“Secret McQueen,” Holden added, placing extra emphasis on my last name.
That did it. My father’s eyes widened, and his hazy expression became clear when he focused his attention back on me, this time as if seeing me anew.
“McQueen?”
“Yes. ”
“How old are you?” His brown eyes—the same color as mine—narrowed into slits.
“Twenty-three. ”
“Where were you born?”
“St. Francisville, Louisiana. ”
He chewed on this for a while, looking to Holden and Desmond as if he wanted them to validate his suspicions before he spoke again.
“Who’s your mother?”
“Mercy McQueen. ”
His eyes went wider, and now he looked more excited than suspicious. He took a step closer, but I wasn’t expecting it and stepped out of his reach on instinct.
“Who’s your father?” he asked quietly.
“You are. ”
Instead of moving closer, he toyed with his hands, fingers nervously tugging at the hem of his shirt. He was forty years old, but still acted like a teenager.
“I knew you were alive,” he said after a long pause. “I knew…knew I hadn’t killed you. ”
“No. You didn’t. ”
“I wanted to meet you, but…I didn’t know where you were. ”
“I know. Vivienne hid me. ”
He nodded, seeming to accept this fact without question. He probably assumed she’d been hiding me from him, when in fact she’d been keeping me away from her own children, fearful of what Mercy or my Uncle Callum would do to me.
“You look like her. Like Mercy. ” He smiled, obviously thinking he was paying me a compliment.
“I think I look more like you. ”
When his smile broadened, I knew I’d said the right thing. “It’s nice to meet you. Secret. ”
“It’s nice to meet you too. ” I wanted to say Dad. Wanted so badly to call him by that title since I’d been missing out on using it for over two decades. But when I was presented with a chance to finally say it to his face, the word froze in my throat and I couldn’t. Instead I said, “I need to ask you about the pendant. ”
Ingrid was the first person Holden, Sutherland and I saw when we entered the Council headquarters in L. A. later that same night. Once I’d found out what my father knew about the pendant he’d been carrying, I secured us safe passage back to Los Angeles.
Desmond understood why he couldn’t join us for this leg of the journey and had volunteered to get our belongings from the hotel in San Francisco. I’d never been so grateful to accidentally stay at a Lucas Rain Hotel before. Under normal circumstances our things would probably be long gone, but since my ex-fiancé owned the hotel, Desmond told me our room had been left untouched, the expenses ignored at Lucas’s request.