Suddenly Psychic (Glimmer Lake #1)(50)
“But they had no idea that you existed before the DNA thing? They had no idea that Grandma Helen…?”
“According to them, Billy was the quiet type. And he was young. He and Mom probably had plans to run away together, but I have no idea what happened and neither do the Grimmers. They all moved out and started new lives. They were curious what had happened to Billy, but they didn’t have many resources until DNA testing became more common.”
“And they found you.”
Raymond nodded. “You can imagine the shock, but when I saw the pictures they had…”
“The resemblance is pretty obvious.”
“It is. And the minute I met some of Billy’s brothers, I knew. I was definitely part of the Grimmer clan. I can’t even tell you why, but I knew.”
“Do you think Gordon knew?”
“I’m sure he knew eventually.” He tapped his finger on the coffee cup. “I was born early, according to Mom. But I’ve seen my birth certificate. I was pretty big for a premature baby, if you ask me.”
“So you think she was pregnant when she married Gordon?”
“Why else would she marry him? Mom and Gordon were never in love. I’m pretty sure she married Gordon because she was pregnant. Options for young single mothers were not the best in 1946.”
“True.” It would certainly explain why Grandma Helen stayed in such an unhappy marriage.
“Now,” Raymond continued, “I don’t know if Mom told him she was pregnant when they got married, but Gordon would have known Billy Grimmer. They lived in the same town. Once I got old enough, he could have easily put things together. Gordon and Mom were both blond, and I had dark brown hair before I went grey.”
Robin leaned forward and said, “I was trying to talk with Grandma Helen about this last week before I called. She said something strange. She mentioned a couple of times that Grandpa Russell was kind to you. Her word. Kind. Which I thought was strange, because why would she mention that the man was kind to his own son? Plus, from what I’ve heard, he wasn’t all that kind.”
“That’s interesting.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Kind?”
“Yeah. I thought it was strange.”
“I suppose Gordon wasn’t horrible to me until I got to be a teenager,” Raymond said. “That’s probably when it became more obvious that I wasn’t his. Before then, he was mostly indifferent. But if Mom thought Gordon was being kind, then I think we have to assume that Gordon knew from the beginning I wasn’t his son.”
“He might have known she was pregnant when he married her,” Robin said. “Do you think Billy knew she was pregnant?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” Raymond said. “We don’t even know what happened to Billy. He didn’t stay with Mom, that’s for sure. He must have run off, but according to the Grimmers, he never got in touch.”
Robin knew. She knew exactly what had happened to Billy Grimmer. She just didn’t know how to tell Raymond without arousing suspicion. Of course, some information was public.
“You know,” she said, “I had a bad car accident a couple of months ago. My car went into the lake.”
“Robin.” Raymond reached for her hand. “Your car went in the lake? Thank God you’re okay. What happened?”
“It’s a long story, but when they were raising my car, they unearthed a body that had been at the bottom of Glimmer Lake for a long time. They think… maybe even seventy or eighty years.”
Raymond’s eyes went wide. “You don’t think—”
“Maybe?” Robin took a sip of cold coffee. “I don’t know. Nobody knows what happened to Billy. Maybe he ran off, or maybe he never left Grimmer.”
“There’s no way of knowing.” Raymond was frowning. “What happened to the man in the lake? Do they know how he died? It could have been a boating accident or something to do with the dam. Is it even a man?”
“I’m pretty sure it was a man. The sheriff was sending the remains to the state crime lab in Sacramento,” Robin said. “But Uncle Raymond, it wasn’t an accident.”
“How do you know?”
“There were chains around his ankles,” Robin said quietly. “That’s how they determined the age of the remains. Whether he drowned in the lake or was dead when he went in, someone didn’t want his body to be found.”
Chapter 18
An hour after she’d left Raymond, Robin called Val. “Hey,” she said. “I think I’m out of my funk.”
“You were in a funk?” Val asked. “By the way, you’re on speaker. Monica’s here.”
“Hey, Robin.” Monica lowered her voice. “How are you so dense, Val? Yes, she was in a funk. The date with Mark did not go well.”
Robin kept her eyes on the road. “The funk was not because of Mark.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sure.”
“Okay, maybe it’s kind of because of Mark, but it was also because I felt like we were accomplishing nothing important, and this was all in my head, and we were being stupid about our supposed supernatural powers.”
“Supposed powers?” Val asked. “I nearly lost my head earlier today because that cheating cheater who likes my danishes told his side chick he loved her the same day he told his girlfriend, and I saw it when I accidentally touched his keys. Again! I want to kick him out of the café, but seriously, I have no valid basis for calling him an asshole. God, people are the worst.”