The Stillwater Girls(70)

“Please, I’d love that,” I say, nodding though she can’t see me.

“All right, well, again, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to know you’re alive and well,” she says. “And I’m just dyin’ to meet you. Will be in touch soon.”

Trina ends the call, and within thirty seconds, the first picture message comes through.

It’s her.

It’s the woman with the yellow hair.

That was my mother.





CHAPTER 50

NICOLETTE

“First-degree kidnapping,” Brant says as he hangs up his phone. “Murder in the first.”

“Davis’s charges?” I ask, sliding into bed.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the night we found our daughter, though it’s still as vivid as if it all took place last night. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can hear the wail of the sirens, see the flash of the red and blue lights against the side of his trailer. The image of our daughter’s sleepy-yet-frightened face will forever be burned into my memory, I’m sure.

The first night we came home after leaving Evie at the hospital, Brant went from room to room, yanking down every picture of Davis, every childhood memento that so much as made him think of his brother.

I asked if he wanted to talk about it as he dumped a box of framed photos into the trash bin. He rested his hands on his hips, gave the garbage one last look, and shut the lid.

“I’m good,” he said after that. “We have Hannah back. Nothing else matters.”

And just like that, I had my sweet-natured, kindhearted, optimistic husband back.

I scoot closer to Brant’s side of the bed, bunching the covers around me.

“Yep,” he says. “May says Davis plotted the entire thing. When Maggie needed meds for Evie, he gave her tainted vitamins instead, ones he knew would make her sick enough she’d need medical attention. Guess Maggie had an emergency satellite phone. Called him that night they left, and he met them in the woods. Killed Maggie. Took Evie.”

“So how did he know that Evie was ours?” I ask. “And how long did he know?”

“Only recently. Maybe less than a year? He claims Maggie told him a lot of things, and he began to piece them together,” he says. “She trusted him. Guess he used to work with her husband at the factory before he died.”

“So . . . what was he planning to do with Evie?”

Brant shrugs. “Honestly, I think he was planning to extort us for as long as he could.”

Davis has never been a man with any long-term direction. He’s never had his sights set on the future. I doubt he thought that far ahead. The idiot probably thought he could milk us indefinitely.

“At least he didn’t hurt her,” I say.

“He’s a lot of things, but I don’t think he’s got it in him to hurt an innocent child, let alone his own flesh and blood.”

I decide not to tell Brant that I disagree. If his brother was capable of extortion and keeping Evie away from us for his own gain, he was capable of anything. For now, I want to focus on the positive, on moving forward so we can all heal and put ourselves back together.

“Mom and Dad are coming this weekend. They can’t wait to meet her,” I say. “And Wren, too.”

Wren’s just as much a part of our family now. I spent an hour last night on the phone with my mother, telling her how much she was going to love Wren. Going on about her resiliency and her intelligence and how proud I was of her for staying so strong and fearless through all this.

“You speak of her as if she’s your own daughter,” my mother said toward the end of our talk.

I lay awake most of last night, trying to imagine what our future will look like from here on out, and every scenario has one thing in common: Wren is a part of them.

For nine years, Wren has loved Evie, looked after her, kept her safe. The least I can do is to give her the gift of knowing Evie will forever and always be her sister and the security of knowing she’s welcome to stay here, with us, as a part of our family.

“Can we adopt her?” I ask. “I know she’s almost twenty, but we can still do that, right? If she wants us to?”

There are a million things we need to focus on: getting to know Evie, ensuring she’s adjusting, reaching a point where she’s comfortable enough to call us something besides our given names, but there’s a niggle at the center of my heart that aches for Wren when I think about what comes next for her. Whatever it is, I want us to be a part of it.

Brant slides in beside me, leaning over to steal a kiss. “We can, and we should.”





CHAPTER 51

WREN

Six Months Later

Six days.

That’s how long we have until we leave for Miami. Brant and Nic are taking us to visit their friend Cate.

I drag a black X across today’s date on the clear plastic calendar hanging on the side of the refrigerator. A pink heart circles the last day of this month—the adoption hearing with a family court judge. The Gideons insisted on adopting me despite my being a legal adult, and they wanted to “go through the proper channels,” which involved meetings with people in suits and mountains of papers to sign. I told them they didn’t have to do this, but they insisted, saying any family of Evie’s was family of theirs.