“I promise you and your parents can see the girls as often as you want. You can drive up and stay with us when you have time. We won’t be that far, and I’ll still need to travel. You’ll be the first I ask to babysit, and, of course, they can come here to see you on school holidays. But I’ll hire a live-in housekeeper to stay with them when that’s not possible. And I’ll make sure I’m free to spend every second I can with them.”
I tried to absorb the blow, although I’d known it was probably coming. I met his gaze and the truth was clear, although I hadn’t wanted to see it. Bryce Wainwright would not be single for long. He was exactly the kind of man women dreamed of having in their lives. And when he remarried, he would choose a good woman who loved children, most especially his.
I would always be Holly and Noelle’s beloved aunt, but I would never be the woman they thought of as their mother.
“I’m going to miss them so much.” I swallowed tears.
“You kind of got used to having them around?”
“I kind of did. It’s been tough, and it’s been great.” Then I pulled my courage out of storage. “But they need to be with you more. I wish they didn’t, but they do. They deserve that, and you deserve it, too.”
He hugged me. “Have a few kids of your own, Ryan. The girls will need cousins.”
I stepped away to search his face. “One of the few things Wendy did right? She married you. Maybe she hoped she could be the wife you wanted and needed. Maybe she thought she could pretend, and eventually, it would be real.”
“While we’re away, I’m going to explain whatever I can to the girls about their mother. But someday they’ll need to know the whole story. We won’t be able to keep the truth a secret.”
“No more secrets. They were forced to keep too many. When she’s comfortable with you again, Holly will tell you hers. But bring everything into the light whenever you can. That’s how they’ll heal.”
“You’ll really be okay keeping them until school’s out? I need to sell the house in Connecticut, buy one in Orlando in a good school district near the base—”
“Would you let Mom and Dad help with that? Nobody’s more qualified, and being involved will ease the ache in their hearts. Mom will be up there scouting school districts before the words are out of your mouth.”
He nodded. “How are they taking this?”
“Dad had a setback and went into the hospital to have meds adjusted, but he’s improving again. Mom spends as much time with the girls as she can. That helps her the most. You’ll see a lot of her in Orlando if you want her.”
“It was never your parents’ fault.”
“Someday, maybe they’ll believe that.”
The door flew open and girls and dog charged back in.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
Holly did a little dance.
I helped drag suitcases down the stairs, gave them snack bags I’d packed for the flight, straightened Noelle’s skirt and tightened the elastic band on Holly’s braid.
And then, just like that, they were gone.
“Just for a week,” I told Bismarck, but for a moment he looked as desolate as I felt. Then he gave a happy little bark. The door opened again, and Teo walked in.
“I said goodbye to the girls out by the road. Bryce looks thrilled to have them.”
I went into his arms and let him hold me as tears trickled down my cheeks. By my own count, I had cried more since Wendy’s disappearance than I’d cried in my entire life up to that point.
“You’re not crying because they’re leaving for a week?” he said. “You were looking forward to the time away.”
“Teo, they’re leaving for good. Not right away, but Bryce has a new job in Orlando. I’m guessing it’s a demotion, but he loves the girls more than his sub. He wants to be with them.” I sniffed. “And I know before too many years go by he’ll be calling to say he met a woman, and she’ll be their new mother. I’ll just be their aunt.”
“You’re already their aunt and their sister. Being their mother, too, would put you in the Guinness Book of Records.”
I slapped his back. “Not funny!”
He wiped my face with the hem of his T-shirt. “Ryan, you told me once you probably don’t want kids.”
“Well, I wanted those two!”
“Since you can’t have them, you might consider other options.”
I snorted. “Like?”
“Like, oh, I don’t know. Maybe getting married someday and having children the way other people do it? Or adopting kids if the other way doesn’t work out? Just saying you could be open to possibilities.”
“Is that a back-assed proposal?”
“Far be it from me to ever approach a proposal from the front, if the woman happens to be you.”
I smiled a watery smile. “We haven’t even lived together. You’ve only hinted you love me.”
“We could live together this week. I have a house, you have a suitcase. That might even give you enough time to come up with something else we disagree about. If you put your mind to it.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact you lied to the authorities about how you happened to know where your sister could be found.”
“Really, Teo? What makes you think so?”
He slowly shook his head.
“Not saying this has anything to do with your question, but for the record, I have the kind of job where I’m never quite sure what’s legal. The law’s a little murky since I don’t work for the police. And sometimes other people are involved.”
“Sophie?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Your friend Glenn, the spy guy?”
“Couldn’t say, but he does have some wonderful gadgets at his store.”
“Like?”
“Like trackers so small you can slip them under car mats. Only, of course, Wendy was driving a rental, which I knew she’d trade in the moment she left Pronghorn, so even if I’d been tempted to do such a thing, that wouldn’t have made sense.”
“What else tempted you?”
“There are so many sophisticated possibilities. GPS units so tiny they fit into prescription bottles. Pharmacies put them on shelves with their schedule I and II drugs, so if somebody breaks in, the bottles can be tracked and the perps can be caught. It’s very cool.”
“I’ve heard of that.”
“All the tracking’s done by computer. Wouldn’t it be interesting if one of those GPS bottles had been labeled by someone with a certain expertise and filled with one of Wendy’s prescriptions?”
“And the tracking?”
I shook my head. “It’s all hypothetical. Who has that kind of know-how, really? Like I said, Wendy just happened to tell me where she was going. She slipped up.”
“You’re something, you know that?”
“You still want me?”
“I still want you. So does Bismarck.”
“Well, if Biz is involved.”
There was no doubt after the kiss that followed, that he meant exactly what he said.
He and Bismarck left a few minutes later, and I went upstairs to pack what I would need for a week.
I decided to swing by my parents’ house before I drove to Teo’s. I wanted to check on them again. They were strong, but they had been through too much not to be marked by it. I hadn’t moved back to Seabank just for the girls and Teo. I’d moved back to be close to them and to provide all the comfort I could.
I had other family here, too. One of Sean Riley’s brothers lived in town, and I was working up my courage to go and see him. Once the shock died down, if he thought it was a good idea, I would ask him to break the news to his parents about me. They might even be glad to have me nearby.
I had cleared Wendy’s clothes out of the closet, and Mom had carried them away. I di
dn’t know if everything was in storage or a landfill. She had to deal with losing Wendy one step at a time, in her own way.
I realized now that we’d forgotten something important. When the moving crew had carried out the old furniture from the bedroom, I’d rescued Wendy’s scrapbooks from the bottom of her dresser. With the furniture gone, I’d set them on a closet shelf.
Now I reached up and pulled down the photo scrapbook. I wasn’t sure what to do with either, but eventually this should be another decision for my mother to make. There was one thing I had to do, though.
On my new bed I paged through the scrapbook. Baby Wendy, toddler Wendy, preteen Wendy, high school Wendy.
I came to the photo of Wendy holding me as an infant. I slipped it out of the scrapbook and methodically folded and tore it until there was nothing left but dust.
Who was the woman who’d reluctantly given birth to me? Had she been born with evil in her heart? Or at the beginning, had she been eager to please, eager to do the right thing? Had my parents loved her so much that one day, she started to believe she deserved anything she wanted? Had her beauty and talent made manipulation too easy? Had she always been acting when she was kind to others?
If she’d ever felt love, was it still buried deep inside, or had it been extinguished years ago?
There were so many questions that would never be answered, a sister’s questions, a journalist’s questions. But the one answer I did know? I had done exactly what I needed to. Whoever Wendy was, my sister, my mother, my enemy, with any luck, she would never hurt anybody again.
The man I loved was waiting across town. Someday maybe we would find a way to create our own family. I was ready to try.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every June I look forward to spending five days with my energetic brainstorming friends. Thanks as always to Serena B. Miller, Casey Daniels/Kylie Logan, and Shelley Costa Bloomfield, whose enthusiasm and vision make every book we work on together that much better.
Thanks, too, to our free press, whose accurate and truthful reporting of the news is fodder for every book I write. The idea for this novel came from a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer more than a decade ago. Sometimes it takes that long.
Thanks to my insightful editor, Emily Ohanjanians, and my equally insightful agent Steve Axelrod for their encouragement and input. Thanks to the art department at MIRA Books for this cover, which I loved the moment I saw it—words they never expected to hear.
Special thanks to fabulous authors Jayne Ann Krentz and Diane Chamberlain, who volunteered to read the manuscript and then gave me wonderful quotes for my cover.
Every author knows that when doing research, the questions we forget to ask are the ones that get us in trouble. So, as always, any mistakes in this novel are my own. That said, the staff of Central Florida K-9 in Orlando enthusiastically allowed a stranger to spend most of a day at their sides learning what they do and how they do it. My thanks to Rock Galloway, the director of training and operations, Rina, Sarah and JT, instructors, and Paul, the kennel tech. I have such admiration for all of them. They successfully work with many kinds of dogs, often aggressive and difficult. Their love and respect for their work and the dogs under their care is obvious.
Imagine my surprise when after plotting this book, we added a K9 officer to our own family. My thanks to Eric Smith, of the St. Petersburg, Florida police department, who gave me colorful insights into the life of a K9 officer, including some real life encounters he and others have experienced.
My thanks, too, to the creators of my favorite true crime podcasts: Accused, Breakdown, In the Dark, Serial and Criminal. Each one features professional, in depth reporting, and helped me create Ryan’s fictional podcast, Out in the Cold.
Finally thanks to my husband, Michael McGee, who fixed delicious meals and brought me countless cups of tea as I finished this novel. I’m sure that without his love and support, suggestions and critiques, I would never have written more than seventy novels, nor wanted to.
A
FAMILY
OF
STRANGERS
EMILIE RICHARDS
Reader’s Guide
Questions for Discussion
As the novel begins, Wendy asks her younger sister, Ryan, for a surprising favor. While the two sisters aren’t particularly close, Ryan feels obligated because of her ties to Wendy and their parents. In Ryan’s situation, would you have agreed to move back home and take care of Wendy’s young daughters? Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve had to drop everything and put the needs of your family first?
Ryan hardly knows her nieces and isn’t particularly fond of them. How well do you think she managed as their caretaker? Did you like or dislike her parenting style? Did Ryan develop a new relationship with Holly and Noelle as the book progressed?
Four years before the book begins, Ryan fell in love with K9 officer Teo Santiago, until her stubborn miscalculation nearly ended both their lives. Did you believe they could surmount the trauma of their past and gradually find their way back to each other? Was time the healer? Did both of them grow enough in the interim to try again?
As a loyal younger sister with investigative skills, Ryan tries to help Wendy prove she’s innocent of murder. At what point in the novel did you begin to believe Ryan’s loyalty was going to be seriously tested? Did you think she accepted too many things about Wendy at face value? Could you understand why?
Imagine that a member of your own family came to you and asked for your help because they believed the police might soon suspect them of murder. Where would you draw the line? Would you be able to see that person clearly, despite a lifelong history of love and acceptance? Would you be able to question your mutual past and form new, logical conclusions?
All families keep secrets, some large, some small. Arlie, Dale and Wendy chose to keep the whole story of Ryan’s birth a secret. Could you empathize with their choice? Are lies always wrong, or are they sometimes appropriate? Once revealed, did Wendy use this particular secret to try to form an even stronger bond with Ryan? What did that say about her?
Do you believe it’s possible for anyone to hide their true nature from the people they love? Have you experienced this in your own life? Have you discovered that someone you thought you knew was really someone entirely different? Do we ever see the people we love clearly? Do we choose not to see what we don’t want to face?
Ryan is torn by nearly impossible choices in this novel and chooses her love of family over her love of the law. Teo counsels her otherwise. Could you understand both their points of view? Did you believe they could find a way to still respect and love each other, despite their differences?
Did you believe that Holly and Noelle ended up exactly where they should be at the novel’s end?
After everything her family endures, do you think Ryan’s new episodes for Out in the Cold will be even more insightful, and more compassionate? Has she learned as much about herself as she’s learned about her family?
ISBN-13: 9781488096570
A Family of Strangers
Copyright © 2019 by Emilie Richards McGee
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
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