Christ and all things holy.
“Feel better?” I asked, averting my eyes from her rack.
“Yes, thank you.”
I pushed a cup of black coffee across the island countertop toward her.
“There’s creamer in the refrigerator and sugar in the cupboard if you want some.”
She shook her head and took a hungry sip of the coffee. “This is perfect, thanks.”
I watched her lace her fingers through the mug handle and take another appreciative mouthful.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
I poured a second cup of coffee.
“Now you tell me what happened.”
A deep exhale left her body, and I could see her struggling with finding the right words. She nervously played with the necklace around her neck. Gold letters spelled the word Hope.
To help her relax, I asked her about it. “Tell me about the necklace. I’ve noticed you play with it when you’re lost in thought.”
“I do?” She looked surprised.
“Yeah. Last night while you were watching Game of Thrones and again the other night when …”
When you kissed me and it took every ounce of my discipline not to kiss you back.
She looked up at me coyly, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“When I kissed you?” An embarrassed smile tugged at her lips. “It’s okay. We might as well address that elephant in the room.”
This girl was a straight shooter. It was refreshing.
“I wasn’t going to say that. And believe me, it took a lot for me to not kiss you back.” I gave her an easy-going smile and gestured to the necklace again. “So tell me about it. Who gave it to you?”
She smiled softly but it was filled with regret.
“My mom.” She dropped her lashes. “My real mom.”
“Right. That’s why you were referring to Barrett as your foster brother.”
She nodded. “When I was born my mother left me in a laundry basket next to the confessional box at a church just outside of Sacramento,” she said, twisting the gold chain around her finger. “Besides me and a blanket, this was the only other thing in the basket.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize.” She let go of the necklace and raised her coffee to her lips, taking a sip. “When I was little I used to think it was what my mother wanted to call me. But as I grew older, I started to think it was what she wanted me to always have. Hope.”
“Your mom really left you in a laundry basket?”
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and nodded. “For the first six weeks of my life I was known as Baby Doe—can you believe it? Made the news and everything. I lived in foster care until they could find the woman who had left me behind. But they never did.”
“So what happened?”
“My story made the news and caught the attention of a prominent family in nearby Sacramento, and they decided to foster me.”
“The Silvermanes.”
She nodded.
“To those looking in from the outside, I suppose it was a godsend for the abandoned child to be adopted by such a rich and loving family. On the outside it was an idyllic match. A hugely successful businessman turned politician, a beautiful, stay-at-home wife and mother to a perfect little boy with a shock of dark hair and big brown eyes. When I came along, I was the cherry on top. Everybody thought we were the postcard perfect family all wrapped up with a big red bow. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.” She ran a finger around the rim of her coffee mug as she spoke. “Kerry Silvermane was an ambitious man. Fifthly rich and full of political aspirations. He was rarely home. And when he was, it was all about photo shoots at the house with his perfectly dressed children and immaculate wife. Everything was done as if we were on permanent public display. Kerry Silvermane wasn’t interested in being a father for anything other than publicity purposes. And his wife was too bombed on vodka and pills to play anything other than the trophy wife.”
I noticed how she didn’t refer to them as her mother and father.
“It’s important for me to have some kind of distinction between me and them,” she explained when I asked her about it. “We’re not family. I don’t care how much they try to pretend that we are. We’re not. It’s the only way I can deal with what happened.”
“Do they know about the rape?”
She frowned. “Can we talk about something else?”
I could see talking about it was affecting her, so I agreed. The rest would come out in time.
“Does your brother have the means to find you?”
She nodded. “And more. He’s rich. And he knows how to get away with things. Worst of all, he will already have a plan in place.”
I leaned down on the counter and raised my eyebrow at her.