The Wife Who Knew Too Much(82)
Whatever this meant, I knew it was of critical importance, so I pulled out my phone, photographed the birth certificate, and texted it to Hagerty. Next, I examined the photo of the newborn baby in its mother’s arms. This had to be Juliet—Julissa—and her mother, simply by virtue of being in that same file folder. There was no way to tell if the red-faced little baby was Juliet. But was the mother Gloria? I looked more closely at the girl in the photo—for she was a girl. Thin, dark-haired, pretty, and very, very young. A teenager, with an air of sadness despite the baby in her arms. She’d changed so much, but the shape of the eyes and nose gave her away. It was Gloria.
As I looked closer, I noticed something else, so shocking that I gasped out loud. The narrow room, with its slanted ceiling. I’d been in there minutes ago. This photo of baby Julissa had been taken in the room next door. Gloria had given birth while she worked here at Windswept. I remembered something that Nina had written in her diary—something about a baby crying?
Father unknown.
Hands shaking, I photographed the photo itself, then the other documents in the file—adoption papers, a motion for termination of parental rights, a motion for unsealing of adoption records, and more. When I’d finished with that folder, I replaced it and moved on to the next one. I started with the first of five separate folders labeled “Lawsuit.” As I laid down a legal document to take its picture, the title of it stopped me cold. “Julissa M. Davila, Plaintiff, v. Edward M. Levitt, Defendant.” The date stamp on the front of the document showed that it had been filed in court nearly ten years earlier. As I flipped to the next page, the words leaped out at me—“rape,” “acknowledgment of paternity,” “abandonment,” “child support.” Juliet had sued Edward Levitt, alleging that she was Edward’s biological daughter, the product of his rape of his employee, Gloria Maldonado.
Juliet had told Nina this house was hers by right. This was what she’d meant.
Gloria had said, She’s her father’s daughter. And this was what she had meant—that Juliet—Lissa—was Edward Levitt’s offspring.
Just then, I heard footsteps outside the bedroom door. I put the file back, closed the desk drawer, and locked it. As the door to the room began to swing inward, I jumped up and moved away from the desk.
Connor stood in the doorway. His figure in the dim light had an air of menace.
“What are you doing sneaking around up here?” he said, as he advanced toward me.
39
He stopped a few feet away from me. I searched his eyes in the semidarkness, looking for the Connor I knew, the one who loved me, the father of my child. But his face was a mask of suspicion and anger.
“I—I was looking for Juliet,” I said.
“Alone in her room in the dark?”
I felt vulnerable, in this cramped room on this empty floor, cut off from the rest of the house. I needed to put some space between us.
“I was just—I was going to leave her a note, but it can wait. Come downstairs. I need to ask you something important.”
I pushed past him, heart hammering, afraid he’d try to grab me. But he simply followed me down the stairs and into our room, shutting the door behind him. In the bright light of the master bedroom, I could see that stress was taking its toll on him. He looked as bad as I did, his skin gray, his eyes red, his tie hanging askew against a crumpled white shirt. I had to fight a rush of sympathy. This Connor didn’t deserve my concern. This Connor had let me be charged with murder, and had not even shown up to the courthouse.
“Where were you today?” I said, my voice dripping with disgust. “I went to jail, with our baby inside me, and you didn’t bother showing up. You didn’t come to court. You sent a useless lawyer. You didn’t even call. For all you knew, I could still be rotting there, and you wouldn’t care.”
Connor’s face went red, but he kept his voice calm as he replied.
“If you want to know the truth, I was trying to cool down before I had to face you. I was so angry.”
“You’re angry at me?” I demanded, pacing up and down just out of his reach, so furious that I was panting.
“Calm down. This is bad for the baby.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. You know what’s bad for the baby? Sleeping on a hard bench in an ice-cold cell. Going to jail for a murder I didn’t commit.”
“I sent a lawyer.”
“Courtney Whatever-the-fuck? Please. She had no clue, and you knew it. You wanted her to fail.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you framed me.”
“First of all, I didn’t. And second, you put yourself in this position. When were you planning to tell me that you have a rap sheet? That you’re a drug dealer? That you sold exactly the same type of pill that Nina died from? Don’t you think that was something I had a right to know before deciding to marry you?”
For a moment, I had the strangest sensation of staring down at us from above. If I stepped outside myself, I was the one who looked guilty, not Connor. Maybe his anger was justified. Maybe he hadn’t killed Nina and wasn’t trying to frame me. But then, how did he explain Juliet? I had proof right there in my jeans pocket not just of her false identity, but of their preexisting relationship. I ran my finger over the smooth surface of the photo of the two of them together. I was tempted to pull it out and throw it in his face. But I had to be more strategic than that. I was supposed to be tricking Connor into implicating himself in Nina’s death for the benefit of the police who were recording our conversation. I didn’t exactly have a plan for doing that, other than getting him talking about the murder.