Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(46)

I’m not the same person I was back then. I had developed a drug habit to help me deal with all those psychic visions I couldn’t control—but that made everything even worse. I made stupid decisions because of the drugs. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the way things were. The dumbest one of all—even worse than leaving you— was telling you the baby had died.

But what, Calla wonders, was the alternative? Wouldn’t Mom have figured that out anyway? This doesn’t make any sense.

When you went into premature labor before we had even figured out what we were going to do with the baby, I pretty much went off the deep end. I had thought from the start that we were both set on giving it up for adoption, but then you started to seem unsure about it. I realized you probably wouldn’t be able to go through with it once the baby was born. And I honestly believed it was the right thing to do—for selfish reasons, but also for unselfish ones.

I contacted the agency a few months before the baby was born, without telling you. It was the wrong kind of agency, obviously, and I definitely went about it the wrong way, but I guess I couldn’t see past all the money they were offering. Not just to cover expenses, but a big chunk of cash for the baby. I never realized how wrong that was. I never thought to check their credentials and it never occurred to me that they weren’t a legitimate operation. I figured that was how it worked. I figured everybody would win—our daughter would grow up better than we could ever raise her, and we could have our lives back.

The pieces are beginning to fall into place, but Calla doesn’t dare assume anything.

Breath caught in her throat, she reads on, filled with dread— and with hope.

I made myself believe that I was actually doing you a favor, telling you the baby had been stillborn. I know that seems hard to believe, but I figured you would get over it and move on quicker than you would if you thought she was out there somewhere.

Remember how you kept saying you could have sworn you heard her cry? That almost did me in. I convinced you that you were just out of it from all the pain. I hated myself for that. What broke my heart more than anything was finding that memorial you made in the woods, in the spot where she was born, just so you’d have a grave where you could leave flowers. By then, I wanted desperately to tell you that she was alive, but I was too afraid.

Calla gasps, pressing a fist to her trembling lips as she rereads the last line.

So it’s true.

The baby didn’t die after all.

I really do have a sister.

A maelstrom of questions fills Calla’s head.

She seizes upon the most important one: Where is she?

Please, please let the information be here.

She reads on.

Then, a few months later, out of the blue, you confronted me to ask whether I had been telling the truth about the baby being stillborn. You gave me a chance to redeem myself, and instead I lied to you again. That was when I knew I had to get out of Lily Dale. For good.

Leaving you— and my parents—was hard. But I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t as hard as it should have been, thanks to the drugs. I had to hit rock bottom in order to get clean. I had to get used to my psychic visions all over again, and accept them. That took years. By that time, I knew I had to tell you the truth. But finding you, and finding the nerve to do it, took years, too.

Anyway, you should know that I’ve already hired a private detective to find our daughter. I told him the whole story, including date of birth and the name of the agency. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out anything more.

Calla hurriedly and shakily closes that e-mail and clicks on the next. It’s from her mother.

Darrin, you gave me a lot to think about. I don’t know what else to say, other than please let me know when you hear from the detective.

More than two weeks go by without an e-mail between them.

Then comes one from Darrin, dated March 16.

That was the day before he showed up on our doorstep back in Florida with that manila envelope.

They’ve found her. They even gave me pictures they shot with a telephoto lens. She’s beautiful. I’ve booked a flight to Tampa first thing tomorrow morning so that I can show you and talk about this in person. Let me know if that’s okay, and where to meet you. I can be there by 11.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God . . .

Lightheaded, breathless, Calla moves on to her mother’s terse response.

Just come here. I’ll work from home. Jeff will be on campus and my daughter will be at school.

Mom gave him their address.

And he showed up, Calla remembers. But not until that afternoon. The flight must have been late. Calla was already back from school by that time. And Mom wasn’t working when she got there—she was baking Irish soda bread, for Saint Patrick’s Day.

Mom always puttered in the kitchen when she was stressed out. She said it relaxed her.

She burned the soda bread that day, while she was talking to a man Calla believed was a colleague.

Tom Leolyn.

Darrin Yates.

In his hands was a manila envelope.

It was in Mom’s hands, too, when Sharon Logan pushed her down the stairs. But it wasn’t beside her body when Calla found her.

There’s another e-mail from Mom to Darrin, sent a few minutes later. It reads simply,

I forgot to ask— where did you find her? And what’s her name?

Darrin’s response is even shorter.