Chapter 6

Grant bailed me out the next morning.

He stood outside the county jail in a gray sweater, looking nothing like the polished heir from the gala. He handed me a coffee. I took it with both hands.

“Vivian is furious,” he said.

“I imagine.”

“She threatened to disinherit me. She said if I kept helping you, I would lose everything. The trust fund. The apartment. My job at Calder Capital.”

“And Celeste?”

He looked away. “Celeste admitted she knew I was adopted. Vivian told her years ago. She said it was a private family matter and I would never forgive anyone who told me.”

“So she lied too.”

“She thought she was protecting me.” He said it like he didn’t believe it.

We drove to the county clerk’s office. Grant had a lawyer, a quiet woman named Patricia who owed him a favor. She pulled the hospital records and the burial permits for St. Anne’s from March 1999.

There was a death certificate for Nora Vale’s son. There was no burial record. No cremation. No plot. No funeral home. The baby had supposedly died, but his body had never been buried.

“That’s impossible,” Patricia said. “Hospitals don’t just lose remains.”

Grant stared at the paper. “She never had a funeral because there was no body.”

I touched his arm. He didn’t pull away. “I held you for four hours,” I said. “Then a nurse took you. She said you needed tests. When she came back, she said you were gone.”

“What did you do?”

“I screamed. They sedated me. When I woke up, Vivian was there. She told me she was sorry for my loss. She gave me a small box with a lock of hair. I kept it for years. I buried it under a rosebush at my mother’s house.”

Grant’s face twisted. “She gave you a lock of hair.”

“I thought it was yours.”

We sat in the car outside the clerk’s office. The autumn light was fading. Grant held the death certificate in one hand and my half-locket in the other.

“I believed her,” he said. “My whole life.”

“She made sure of that.”

“I loved her.”

“I know.”

He looked at me. “What am I supposed to call you?”

“Whatever you want. Right now, you don’t have to call me anything.”

He nodded. Then he said, “Vivian is hosting a family announcement on Saturday. She told me she’s going to disinherit me in front of everyone. She wants to destroy me for choosing you.”

“Then we need to be ready.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“Neither am I,” I said. “But I’ve been silent for twenty-six years. I’m done.”