Chapter 6 - The Photograph That Lied
Gabriel laughed.
One stunned sound.
“That’s insane.”
Sabrina remained silent.
I put the call on speaker.
“Then explain.”
She did.
According to Sabrina, she and Gabriel had dated briefly years earlier.
Before Christian.
Leo was conceived during that period.
But Christian had publicly and privately claimed the boy as his own.
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn wanted him.”
That answer made no sense.
“Wanted what?”
“A Prescott heir.”
Gabriel stood.
“You told me Leo wasn’t mine.”
“You believed Christian.”
“You showed me a paternity test.”
“Lawson gave you a paternity test.”
Another Lawson document.
Another medical truth suddenly questionable.
Gabriel sat down.
For the first time since the hospital room, he looked genuinely destroyed.
“Is Leo mine?”
“I don't know anymore.”
That answer felt real.
Sabrina continued.
Christian told her Leo was his.
Evelyn told her the same.
Lawson produced paperwork.
Everyone accepted the version most convenient to them.
“Did you know about the attack?”
“No.”
“Did you know Christian planned to marry both of us?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“So you knew I was staying his public wife.”
“He said you agreed.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently Christian’s favorite consent method was telling one woman another had already agreed.
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“I stopped asking.”
There it was.
Sabrina was not innocent.
But she wasn't the mastermind I had imagined either.
She had accepted my erasure because questioning it endangered the life she wanted.
“Why were you admitted under my name?”
“Lawson said it protected Leo from the press.”
“Did that seem normal?”
“No.”
“But you did it.”
“Yes.”
Again.
Complicity by increments.
Sabrina told us she had found something inside Christian’s home two weeks earlier.
A safe.
Inside were fertility records.
Mine.
Hers.
And a third woman.
Name:
Margaret Cole.
Neither of us knew her.
“Why call now?”
“Because Margaret disappeared.”
My skin prickled.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Another missing woman connected to Lawson.
Like Ana.
Maybe connected.
Maybe not.
Then Sabrina said:
“Christian wasn't trying to marry me next week.”
I frowned.
“You said—”
“He told me yesterday the private ceremony was canceled.”
“Why?”
“He said Evelyn changed the plan.”
“What plan?”
“I don't know.”
Then a child’s voice sounded behind her.
“Mommy?”
Leo.
Sabrina immediately softened.
“One second, baby.”
Something painful moved through me.
I had hated a woman.
Then heard her become a mother.
Life complicates vengeance.
Before hanging up, Sabrina whispered:
“Genevieve, there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“I've seen photographs of you from before you met Christian.”
“So?”
“You weren’t alone.”
“Who was with me?”
“Evelyn.”
Impossible.
I met Christian’s mother after our third date.
Sabrina sent the photograph.
College graduation.
I stood in the background.
Twenty-two years old.
May you like
And across the lawn, watching me, stood Evelyn Prescott.
Three years before Christian and I supposedly met by chance.
