The Chesapeake Diaries Series (220 page)

She nodded and tried to smile. “What about a text?”

“Wendy. Wanted to know what time I’d get to her apartment. She’s moving today and I told her I’d help her.” He glanced at his watch.

“What time was she expecting you?”

“About a half hour ago.”

“Where is she?”

“Baltimore. She’s been living in a studio for the past four years but has finally decided to go for a little more space. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could
live in one of those tiny one-room places, but different strokes, I guess.”

Dune begged for bacon and Cam broke off a small piece for her. Ellie wanted to tell him she didn’t like feeding the dog from the table but the thought was lost inside her head and got mixed up with the resolve she’d made to tell him who she was and the fear that had risen inside her.

“What’s the worst thing it could be, Ellie?” Cameron pushed his plate aside and put an arm around her.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” She put down her fork, her appetite having been banished by the dread that had settled inside her.

“Look, whatever it is …” He seemed to search for words. “Understand that I’m here for you, whatever. Just … whatever.”

“Thank you.” Her hands shook slightly when she picked up her mug but she forced a smile. “Do you need to get going to Baltimore?”

“I do, but I—”

“I’m fine. Really. I’m just overreacting. I’m sure it’s nothing as bad as what I think.” She pushed back her chair and studied his face, and realized he was studying hers.

“Want me to stick around in case … I don’t know, in case—”

“No, no. Go help your sister.” Ellie leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you, though.”

“I’ll call you later.”

Ellie nodded.

“And you’ll tell me it was something ridiculously
silly like the town’s building inspector forgot to file a U and O or forgot to get a termite inspection.” He held her face in his hands for a long moment, then kissed her.

“Could that happen?” she asked.

“All kinds of things can happen when a house is sold,” he assured her.

Ellie clung to that thought all the way to Old St. Mary’s Church Road.

Diary

Well, another Thanksgiving Day has come and gone and we’ve all survived it. Seems that every year we’re serving more and more folks at the inn, and that’s a good thing, of course, though so exhausting at my age to greet everyone and act the hostess. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe but I’m no spring chicken anymore! Ha!

I joke, but the truth is that my advancing age is no laughing matter. By the time we were just getting into our evening seating for dinner, I was done. Fried, as my granddaughter would say—and she did. Thank God for Lucy. She sent me up to my room—I want to go on the record as having protested, but I admit it was merely to save face—and she took over for me. I had a lovely nap that lasted until six this morning. What can I say? I’m old and I was tired!

Before I pooped out, I had a chat with Ellie Chapman—that is, Ellie Ryder, as she prefers these days—and I’m afraid I may have said too much. But for heaven’s sake, no one ever told that girl what had gone on in her mother’s life and she was entitled to know. Why Lynley had never told her about Evelyn’s depression and the eventual suicide of both Evelyn and Peter, well, I can only speculate on that. All right, speculation combined with what I glean
from Lilly from time to time. I must say that Lilly isn’t always forthcoming when it comes to sharing but she does occasionally permit me some insight through the portal, so to speak. It’s difficult for me to present as fact what I learn from Lilly via my Ouija board and the things that come to me in my dreams. So for me to tell Ellie that I know that Lynley hid the full story of her parents’ tragedy because she’d had so much conflict over the whole thing, well, surely she’d wonder how I knew. But here’s the truth of it: Lynley had been devastated by the loss of her sisters, but no one seemed to acknowledge her loss. Evelyn, that silly, self-absorbed woman, was only mindful of her pain, and none of the pain of others. She wallowed in her grief to the exclusion of everything else, including her living daughter. While Peter sending Lynley to live with Lilly and Ted may have broken Lynley’s heart at first, in the end, it was the best thing that could have happened, because they allowed her to grieve. They made her the center of their lives, and in doing so, helped her to heal from the trauma of losing her siblings. I speak from firsthand knowledge of that sort of pain, having lost a brother when I was nine. Steven’s death had shattered all of us, but none of us children ever were lost in the shuffle of our family’s sorrow
.
Anyway, it’s Ellie’s right to know the truth about her family. If I can help her to discover that truth, I’ll do so
.

At least, until Lilly tells me to shut up
.

Grace
                

Chapter 17

J
esse met Ellie at the door, his face grim.

“What’s happened?” Dread washed over her again, and she knew this had nothing to do with code violations.

“You need to sit down.” Jesse led her into his office and closed the door, even though Violet Finneran had the day off and no other clients were in sight. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you.…”

“Tell me what?” Her legs shaking, Ellie sank into the first chair inside the door. “Just say it.”

“I got a phone call last night around nine thirty from your father’s personal attorney.”

“Max Forester?” Ellie frowned. “What was so important that he had to call you on Thanksgiving night? What did he want that couldn’t have waited until this morning?”

“He wanted to talk about your sister.”

“What sister? I don’t have a sister.”

“Apparently you do.”

“You’re not making any sense.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m an only child.”

“Ellie … there’s just no other way to say this.”

Jesse sat in the chair next to her and turned it to face hers. “Your father began an affair with a woman in New Jersey about sixteen years ago. They had a child together.”

“That’s preposterous. The feds went over every second of his life for the past thirty years. If there’d been another woman there, they’d have found her and everyone would have known about it a year ago.”

“Does the name Marilyn Hansen ring any bells?”

“No. I’ve never heard it before. She’s the one?”

Jesse nodded.

“That’s crazy talk,” Ellie scoffed. “Oh, wait. Let me guess. She’s looking to get some sort of payoff from him by claiming that a child of hers is his. Ms. Hansen’s obviously way behind in her reading. Every newspaper and magazine in the country ran the stories of how everything he owned—everything
I
owned—was turned over to the FBI and the SEC to sell to repay his victims. Surely Max told her that.”

“I don’t know what Max told her but it hardly matters now, since she was killed in a car accident two weeks ago.”

“This woman’s dead?”

“She’s dead, but her daughter is alive.”

“Wait a minute, this supposed daughter—”

“Not supposed. There was a paternity test years ago. She’s definitely Clifford Chapman’s daughter. He acknowledged her a long time ago. That’s not in dispute, Ellie. I had Max fax over all the papers this morning. Her birth certificate, the results of the DNA testing, copies of the mother’s bank account.”

“He was supporting her?”

“Evidently quite well.”

“How did he manage to hide that during the investigation?”

“Cash payments every month to her mother.” Jesse leaned back in his chair. “Which I’m assuming stopped once the investigation began.”

“They had to have shown up somewhere,” Ellie insisted.

“Your father’s business brought in a ridiculous amount of money. You of all people must know that.”

“Yes, but I made a lot of money working for him and I had to account for all of it.”

“I know, but you’re honest, and he wasn’t. It appears that he managed to hide a lot over the years.”

“So what does this girl have to do with me?”

“Put bluntly, your father is asking that you take her in.”

“Take her in? What does that mean, take her in?”

“Her mother has no family and her father is in prison. Clifford has asked that you agree to become her legal guardian.”

“You mean, have her live with me?” She choked back a laugh. “Is he delusional?”

“She’s been staying with the Foresters but that was supposed to be temporary, and quite frankly, they don’t want her. They’re turning her over to the state to put her into foster care on Monday if she has nowhere else to go. And other than you, there is no one, no place, for her to go.”

“Well, she’s not coming here, either.” Ellie got up and began to pace. “My father has colossal nerve to even think of asking me to raise his … his child.”

She slammed a hand on the back of the chair she’d been sitting in.

“What is wrong with that man, anyway?”

Jesse sat back, apparently willing to let Ellie blow off as much of her anger as she needed to.

“And who is this girl? How old is she?”

“She’s thirteen.” He got up and reached for a file on his desk. “Her name is—”

“Don’t tell me her name. Don’t tell me anything about her. I don’t want to know. He’s crazy if he thinks for one minute that I’d …”

Jesse closed the file and Ellie walked into the hall, paced some more, then came back into the office.

“Did you speak with my father directly?”

“No, only Max. He said that both he and your father had tried to contact you by mail but you hadn’t responded.”

Ellie thought about the letters she’d received—two from her father and one from Max’s law firm—and tossed away. She groaned and sat for a few seconds, got up, paced once more, then sat again.

“Where is this girl now?” she asked.

“She’s with Max and his family, but they’re not willing to keep her. Actually, they’re supposed to be leaving on a cruise tomorrow and want her gone today. Max sounded extremely put out that you hadn’t contacted him to make arrangements for her, so that he and his family had to share their Thanksgiving Day with her.” Jesse paused, then asked, “Is Max as big a jerk as I make him sound?”

“Bigger,” she told him. “You have no idea.”

“Oh, I have some idea. He said having her at dinner yesterday put a damper on their family’s holiday. That she was sullen and antisocial.”

“Oh, gee. She was sullen? Really?” Ellie snorted,
her sense of fair play tweaked. “Ya think it might have had something to do with the fact that her mother’s dead, her father’s in prison, and her choice is between foster care or a half sister she’s never met? Can’t imagine why she wasn’t in more of a party mood.”

“That was pretty much my reaction, too. It can’t be easy for this kid.”

“Don’t make me feel sorry for her.” Ellie put both hands over her face and groaned. “Jesse, I don’t want to do this. I really don’t want to do this.”

“I understand. I don’t know how I’d feel in your shoes. I don’t know what I’d do.”

Ellie paced a little more and wished she could turn the clock back to early this morning when she had nothing on her mind except Cameron and memories of their night together. She hadn’t had time to process it—needed time to process it—but here she was, being asked to decide the fate of a hitherto unknown girl. Her sister.