The Chesapeake Diaries Series (222 page)

“You’re not?”

“I’m sorry that so much has happened to you in so short a time. I’m sorry that you lost your mother and you got jerked around by Max for the last couple of weeks.” She wouldn’t be surprised if, sooner or later, Max billed her father for those hours. “I’m sorry that your father—our father,” she corrected herself, “wasn’t a better dad to you. He should have been.”

Ellie went downstairs, where Jesse was just delivering a pile of boxes.

“That’s the end of it, I think,” he told her.

“Jesse, I can’t thank you enough for getting her here.”

“Is she going to be all right?” he asked. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I think we’ll be okay after we get to know each other a little. I can’t help but feel sorry for her. She seems like a really nice kid who deserves better than to be just one more person who got screwed over by Clifford Chapman.”

“Agreed.” Jesse let himself out the front door. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do,” she told him.

Ellie went into the kitchen and tried to make sense of the entire day, which had gone from fabulous to crazy in practically no time at all. She’d planned on spending much of this day just basking in what remained of the glow of her night with Cameron. Instead, she was pushed once again into the harsh light that seemed to accompany everything connected with her father these days.

She heard Gabrielle moving upstairs, the floorboards squeaking as she moved from one room to the next, trying to decide which one she wanted. Ellie hadn’t had time to figure out how she felt about this hitherto unknown half sister of hers. She seemed like a genuinely sweet girl, one who’d been handed a particularly nasty hand. How things were going to play out, Ellie couldn’t even begin to guess.

One thing she did know was that what her father had done to her didn’t hold a candle to what he’d done to Gabrielle.

Ellie made open-faced tuna sandwiches since she and Cam had used most of what little bread she had for toast earlier. She and Gabi—as Gabrielle announced she really did prefer—ate in the kitchen, trying to talk past the strangeness.

“Did you decide on a room?” Ellie asked.

“I think I like the back room on the left side of the hall best. Would it be okay if I moved my stuff into there?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.” Gabi looked down. “Why does the floor look like that?”

“The old linoleum was hideous, so I tore it up. The wood hasn’t been sanded yet.”

Gabi pointed to the wall Cam and Ellie had worked on the night before.

“Nice cutwork around the doorway,” she told Ellie. “Did you do that?”

“No, my friend did. And what do you know about cutwork?”

“I know that you paint with a brush around the molding and then you finish the rest of the wall with a roller. My mom always did all our paint and stuff.” Gabi took a bite of her sandwich. “Who’s your friend? A boyfriend?”

Ellie thought about how to categorize her relationship with Cameron. “Sort of.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cameron.”

“That’s a cool name. There was a boy in my old school named Cameron. He was a jerk but at least he had a cool name.” She took a drink of water to wash down the tuna and bread. “Where am I going to go to school?”

“I don’t know where the school is. I’ll have to ask someone.”

“Are there any kids on this street, you know, my age?” Gabi asked.

“I don’t think so. Most of the houses along here belong to summer people, so they’re empty this time of the year. There’s an older couple who live across the street, and a few young families closer to Charles Street, but I haven’t seen anyone your age. I’m sure there are lots of kids in town, though. That’s something else I can ask around about.”

“Never mind. I guess I’ll meet kids when I go to school.” She took another bite and chewed it slowly. “Will that be on Monday?”

“Do you want to go on Monday?”

Gabi nodded. “I love school. I’m very smart and I get very good grades. I’m a pretty good athlete, too.”

“What sports do you play?”

“I play field hockey and lacrosse at school and I run track with the girls’ club.”

“The same sports I played,” Ellie noted, and Gabi beamed at this bit of news.

“So, we’ll do our best to get you to where you need to go on Monday.” Ellie thought for a moment. “I think we’ll need to get your records from your last school, though.”

“I think Mr. Enright had all that stuff. Mr. Forester had a big folder that he gave to Mr. Enright. I think it’s in that box you took upstairs.”

“We’ll look for it.” Ellie grew thoughtful. “And I probably need something to show that I’m your guardian.”

“Is that going to be okay with you?” Gabi’s face was suddenly very serious.

“I think it’s going to be fine.”

“ ’Cause, you know, I heard foster care wasn’t all that bad if you got a nice family.” Gabi straightened her back. Her attempt to look brave was obvious.

“We’re taking the whole foster thing off the table,” Ellie told her.

“Good. I’d rather stay here.” Gabi drained her glass of water to hide her relieved sigh. “Thanks for making lunch, Ellie. Could I take Dune out for a walk?”

“Sure. She’ll like that. Her leash is in the back hall, near the door.”

Ellie moved their dishes to the counter and rinsed them off, then went to the front door. She was about to open it and call to Gabi to suggest that she might like to walk along the beach, when she saw Cam’s pickup in the driveway.

“Hi,” she heard Gabi’s voice. “Are you the sort-of boyfriend?”

Cam stopped on the path to stare at the girl before smiling. “Yeah. Sort of. Who are you?”

“I’m Ellie’s sister, Gabi.”

“Since when does Ellie have a sister?”

Gabi pointed to Ellie, who stood in the doorway.

“I think you’d better ask her.…”

Chapter 18

U
ntil he looked up and saw the stricken look on Ellie’s face, Cameron thought the girl was just kidding around. He was pretty sure that Ellie was Lynley’s only child, which left Clifford Chapman suspect. Would Cam be surprised that Chapman had fooled around on Lynley? Would a man who would cheat so many people out of their life savings have qualms about cheating on his wife? Not likely.

Cam walked up the front steps to where Ellie stood, leaned against the side of the house, and asked, “So, what’s new?”

“I tried to call you a couple of times.” Ellie seemed to be looking everywhere except at Cameron.

“I forgot to charge my phone.” He watched her face. She looked like she was about to jump out of her skin. “My sister ended up having a few of her friends help her move. She really didn’t need me, so I decided to come back and spend the day with my sort-of girlfriend.”

Ellie held the door open for him, a grim look in her eyes. She looked past him to where the girl and the dog stood in the middle of the lawn.

“It’s okay, Gabi,” Ellie called to her. “You can go on down to the beach. Just keep an eye on the sky. It looks like it might rain.”

Gabi nodded and jogged off toward the beach with Dune. Ellie closed the door behind her.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” Cam told her, sensing that Ellie was at loose ends.

“Okay.” She followed him down the hall to the kitchen.

She busied herself at the sink—emptying out the remains of that morning’s coffee, rinsing out the pot and the basket, measuring water, measuring coffee. Cam could tell by her expression that she was conflicted and trying to decide what to say.

“Take your time, Ellie,” he said softly.

She nodded without looking at him. When the coffee was finished percolating, she poured a cup for him and brought it to the table, where he sat, waiting for her to join him.

“What I have to say, I should have said before.” She swallowed hard. “Early this morning, I rehearsed what I was going to say but then Jesse called and I went to his office … and …” Her hands fluttered in the direction of the beach.

“She really is your sister?”

“Half sister. I learned this morning that my father had had an affair that resulted in … Gabi.”

“You didn’t know about the affair?” Cam had read a lot about Clifford Chapman, but he didn’t recall reading that he had an illegitimate child somewhere. He was pretty sure he’d remember that, if for no other reason than that he’d find it hard to believe that
anyone in their right mind would cheat on Lynley Sebastian.

“I had no clue,” Ellie said.

“So why is she here all of a sudden?”

“Her mother was killed in a car accident two weeks ago. It was here or foster care.”

“Tough all the way around. Tough situation for her, tough decision for you.”

Ellie stared at him for several seconds, one eyebrow raised. Finally, she said, “You didn’t ask about her father. Our father. You didn’t ask why she didn’t go to live with him.”

For a brief moment, Cam considered saying something like “I was just about to ask,” but he figured the farce had played itself out. But before he could say, “Because I know he’s in prison,” Ellie surprised him.

“Our mutual father is Clifford Chapman, the King of Fraud.”

“I know,” Cam said simply.

“You know?” Ellie frowned. “How could you know?”

Admitting that he’d read everything he could find on the Internet about her was not going to be easy. It might sound as if he’d been stalking her, and that wasn’t behind his quest for information.

“You guessed because of my middle name, right?” She went on. “I thought I was being so clever, going by my middle name. Who’d have thought that Ryder was so well known here?” She paused. “Then you know who my mother is.”

“Yes. Lynley.” Time to fess up. “But it wasn’t because of your name.”

“Then what …?”

“I did an Internet search.”

“You … you looked me up on the Internet?” She looked as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “You did a search on me?”

Cam nodded. “Magellan Express. When I couldn’t find Ellie Ryder, I looked up Carly Summit and I looked up the school she said you attended. There was a picture of the two of you at some reunion a few years ago. Carly Summit and Ellis Chapman. I looked up Ellis Chapman, and
bam
 … everything anyone would want to know.”

“But why did you search in the first place?”

“Because something just didn’t add up, Ellie. I can’t explain it, but there was just something about you that …” He struggled for the right words. “I knew the minute I met you that you would be important to me. That you were going to mean something in my life. I needed to know who you were, and my gut was pretty sure you weren’t going to tell me, so I had to find out on my own.”

“How long have you known?”

Cam shrugged. “Awhile.”

“The conversations we had about my mother …”

“I didn’t know, at first.”

“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me you’d figured it out?”

“I figured if you wanted to talk about it, if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me. The bottom line is that it really wasn’t any of my business. I didn’t feel it was my place to try to force your hand. That’s how I felt at first, anyway. Lately, I’ve just been wishing that you’d trust me enough to tell me.”

“I was going to tell you. I was afraid of how you’d
react. I came here as Ellie Ryder because I was afraid of how everyone would react when they found out that Clifford Chapman was my father.”

“You need to understand that your father doesn’t matter.”

“Tell that to the thousands of people he defrauded.”

“That has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me. My father is one of the biggest crooks in the country.”

“Did you help him?”

“Of course not. My fiancé did, though.”

“Yeah, I read about that. If you don’t mind me saying, he looked like a dick.”

Ellie smiled. “You’re extremely perceptive.”

“No one’s going to judge you by your father’s crimes, Ellie.”

“A lot of people have judged me over the past year. I can’t tell you how many friends turned their backs on me.”

“And you call them friends?” He scowled. “Friends don’t turn their backs. Friends ride the storm with you. Like Carly did.”

“She was the only one.”

“With a friend as good as she is, maybe you only needed one. But you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not to have people here like you.”

“I was tired of explaining.” She threw her hands up.

“I can understand that. For years I went out of my way to avoid meeting new people so that I didn’t have to explain where my parents were or how they died. I felt responsible for so long. Like somehow it must have been my fault. My fault that my mother was an
alcoholic, my fault that she wanted to hurt us. My fault that she killed my father …”

Ellie reached across the table and took his hands.

“You know that none of that is true.”

“I do. As a rational adult, I do. As a child, though, I wondered. It took me a long time to understand that we’re not responsible for the actions of others.”

She sat quietly, playing with his fingers.

“As a rational adult, you know that you are not responsible for what your father did. You know that, right?” He grabbed her fingers and held them still.

“I do know. I don’t feel guilty because of what he’s done. What I do feel is anger that he and Henry could act so normal while all the time they were finding ways to steal money from people who trusted them. Whole pension funds were wiped out, people lost everything they owned because of them, and all the time, they thought they were so damned clever.” She swallowed hard. “And I admit that I am angry, too, over the fact that I was judged so harshly, especially by people who’d known me for years.”

“I think you’d find that people here would be different.”

“People are people.” She shrugged. “Why would I expect people in St. Dennis to be any different from New York or anywhere else?”

“Because no one around here cares about Clifford Chapman. No one ever did. The story was all over the news last year, as you very well know, but hardly anyone around here talked about it except for the occasional ‘You hear about how Lynley’s husband bilked all those people out of their money?’ Now, if Lynley’d still been alive last year when all this broke,
it would have been different, because it would have involved her, she’d have been at the center of it, and it would have hurt her. But your father’s a nonentity here. Lynley, on the other hand, was very much admired. She was ours, and you’re her daughter.”