by Tess Oliver
“What do you think will happen to the club now?” I asked Cash.
“That’s hard to say. Gunner would have been the next logical president, but since he’s gone, they’ll probably ride rudderless for awhile. I hope, for the club’s sake, someone decent steps into power. I know Dreygon had been grooming Jericho for the position. His dad had a lot of loyal connections within Bedlam. But, like me, he’s done with it.”
I knew it would be hard on Angel when the final threads of her family, Cash and Jericho, had gone, but it was inevitable. “Do you think the club is finished punishing you?”
“Can’t say for sure, but I’m not worried.”
“No, after I saw what you did to Hoover and Blade in those few short minutes, I’m sure you aren’t.” Angel wriggled in my arms again. “Where do you think you’ll go now?”
“I’ve got to find work somewhere. Might head to the coast to see what’s going on over there. Not sure yet.” He peered up in the mirror. “Never would have guessed that day Angel brought you into the compound that things would turn out like this.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed it either.” I looked down at the girl in my arms. As much as I’d turned her life inside out, she’d done the same for me. I hadn’t expected for one person to take complete control of my heart. “It’s as if it was all meant to be,” I said, more to myself than to Cash.
Chapter 18
Luke
The house was still quiet as I slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door. Cash and Jericho were asleep and, after a restless night, Angel slept soundly too. She’d startled awake at least a dozen times, and each time, it had taken a long while for her to fall back asleep. She always comforted me when my sleep was agitated with nightmares, and now, it was my turn to ease her pain.
I started the coffee pot and stared out the window of the house. Kids were strolling along the sidewalks with their backpacks, heading to school, and people were driving off for a day of work. I’d never been the type to want a quiet, ordinary life, but at the moment, it sounded pretty fucking tempting.
I’d taken the brace off my wrist because it was starting to irritate me. My hand seemed to have full motion again, and the pain wasn’t any worse than a mild toothache. I would be heading back to work soon. Angel wanted to start school and learn to drive and live a real life outside of the compound, and I planned to help her do that. But there was still one big twist ahead. A few days earlier, I’d felt somewhat confident that Angel could be the Starlight Baby, but now I wasn’t sure at all. I’d gone over all the coincidences in my head many times, and I could just as easily convince myself it was true as convince myself that it had been a crazy idea.
I sat on the couch and flipped on the television. The flesh wound on my leg stung as it rubbed against the inside of my jeans. All of us had come out of the nightmare virtually unscathed, and I was thankful as hell for that. There had been a few seconds in the dungeon when I was sure that I was a dead man and that Dreygon would finally get his wish to see my head blown off. All I could think about in those seconds was that I didn’t want to leave Angel alone.
My phone rang and I pulled it out. It was Dr. Palmer. I pulled in a deep breath and answered it. “Hello.”
“Luke Barringer?”
“Yes, Dr. Palmer, it’s me.”
There was a long pause, and it seemed the man was trying to catch his breath.
“Dr. Palmer?”
“She is our daughter,” his voice broke. “You’ve found our baby.”
I scrubbed my fingers through my hair, trying to decide if I was actually awake. But the emotion coming through the phone assured me that I wasn’t sleeping. This was happening. My hunch had proven correct, and the long lost Starlight Baby was tucked under the covers in my bed.
It took the doctor a few moments to recover. I could only assume it was the first time he’d said it out loud. His voice still hadn’t come back to him, and it was drained and hoarse as he spoke. “I haven’t said anything to my wife yet. She went in to perform surgery an hour ago, and I don’t expect her out for three or four hours.” I could hear him swallow hard through the phone. “Is the girl— is Lyndsey there with you?”
It took me a second to straighten in my head who he was asking about. “We know her as Angel.” I didn’t know why I’d felt the need to correct the man. He’d just received the most stunning news of his life, but to me she was Angel, a name that suited her perfectly.
The impact of the phone call had temporarily wiped away the explosive events of the day before. Angel had just experienced something so traumatic, I was sure it would take her years to fully recover. Now I had something even more alarming to tell her. As strong as she was, there was no way of knowing how she would react to this news. Just the mention of it as a possibility had sent her into an emotional spiral, and she had been furious with me for even suggesting it.
“She’s sleeping.” I decided not to bring up anything about the previous day. It wasn’t necessary for him to know anything else yet. I’d told him some of the details about Angel’s life, and no doubt, he would learn them all eventually.
“I’m heading home now. Obviously, once I got the test results I cancelled my appointments. I only wish that I could have talked to my wife before she went into surgery. I’ll text you our address. Can you bring her to the house?”
“Of course, but I need to tell her first. This isn’t going to be easy.”
“Once this gets out, I’m afraid the media will explode with it. It seems you’d be too young to remember, but our case was in all the headlines.”
“I’ve no doubt about that, and I do think the longer this is kept quiet, the better. At least until all of you have time to absorb it.”
“Absolutely.” He had regained his composure some, and it seemed his mind was racing with questions. “What about the monsters who took her? When will they be arrested? Do we know their whereabouts?”
“They are both dead. The woman who stole your baby died of suicide when Angel was a young girl, and from what I can tell the only other person who knew about the kidnapped baby was the woman’s father. He died— he died yesterday. It is a long story but you’ll hear all of it soon enough.”
Silence followed and I was sure I heard a sigh of relief through the phone. “I’m glad they are dead. I don’t know if I could face them in a courtroom.”
“We’ll be there in a few hours.” I absorbed the impact of this as well. I was now faced with the task of telling the woman I loved that her entire childhood had been a scam, that she’d been born to a completely different life and upbringing. The layers of emotion that cradled her story were too immense to unpeel all at once. She would have to come to grips with the bleak truth that the mom who raised her, the mom she had loved dearly, had been her kidnapper.
I got up and paced the room a few times, wondering if I should walk in and wake her. But I wasn’t ready yet. I needed to work up the courage to tell her and be prepared for whatever reaction she might have. Her life was about to change far more dramatically than it already had in the last twenty-four hours, in the last few months, for that matter. And, selfishly, I worried about how this would affect our relationship. I hoped that somewhere in the midst of it all, she’d still have a place for me in her life.
My phone rang again and I tensed. It seemed every phone call lately had been more than just a ‘what’s up’ chat. It was Gage. “Hey, whatever it is, I hope it’s not anything dramatic because I’m up to my fucking eyeballs with drama at the moment.”
“Morning to you, too. Shit. I was just going to let you know that Seth left me a message. He’s going to be out of cell phone range for a few weeks, so we won’t be able to reach him.”
“All right.” I scrubbed my hair back with my fingers and then decided to head out to the front porch to talk.
“So, wha
t the hell drama are you talking about? Is everyone all right?”
“Yeah, no, well, yeah. Dreygon snatched Angel right from the front stoop of the house. Jericho, Cash and I stormed the compound. Dreygon nearly killed me, but Angel stabbed in him in the throat and he’s dead.”
Gage was quiet, and I knew he was waiting for me to laugh and say ‘not really’. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.” I sat on the top step and stared out at the quiet street. Two women were dressed in fancy matching jogging suits only they were walking and drinking cups of coffee with their morning exercise. “Now do you want to hear the really big news?”
“Fucking hell,” Gage said. “There’s more?”
“Way more. You know that case of the missing baby that Dad anguished over for years?”
“The Starlight Baby? Yeah,” he said. “What about it?”
“Angel is that baby.”
This time he laughed, and he waited for me to join him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can and I am. The paternity test just came back. I haven’t told her yet— about the test, I mean. She was really upset when I told her that I thought she might be the missing girl.”
“I’ll bet. Shit, I can’t believe it. What were the odds of her finding you out there in the desert? What were the odds of you two crossing paths?”
“I know. It’s mind-boggling. The weirdest part about it is we both connected so quickly, it was like deep down we knew we were supposed to meet.”
“Destiny?”
“I guess that’s what it’s called.” I heard movement inside the house. Someone had opened a kitchen cupboard. “Gage, I’ve got to go. I think Angel is up.”
“Good luck, Bro. Let me know what happens.”
“I will.”
I stayed out on the porch for another minute figuring out what to say. Then I reached for the knob and turned it. Angel picked up the coffee pot as I walked inside. She looked weary and sad and a little lost. She glanced down at the phone in my hand and then her gaze shot to my face.
Turned out I hadn’t needed to spend any time compiling the right words to tell her. She read it in my face. “Luke?”
I nodded. The coffee pot crashed to the floor.
Chapter 19
Angel
I’d left behind my beloved boots, along with all my other bloodied clothing, at the compound. I felt lost without them. Something about those old black boots had made me feel strong, a bit invulnerable, and in the end, they’d hidden the knife that had saved Luke’s life. That was what I’d done. I’d been repeating that in my head to keep myself from going mad with guilt over taking a man’s life. And not just any man, but the one who had pretended to be my grandfather all my life. I sat down and tied the thin leather straps of my sandals around my ankles in Ancient Greek fashion. They fit the newly opened Pandora’s box that was my life. They were odd, vintage sandals that I’d fallen in love with the second I’d discovered them in a heap of old shoes at the thrift store. I hadn’t worn them for months, and my feet felt just one step above being barefoot, especially since my toes were used to being clad in black leather.
I walked to the mirror over the dresser and glanced in it. I looked pale and drawn and a touch disoriented. The blue eyes staring back at me weren’t my own. They belonged to a stranger, a girl whose real life had been dissolved and replaced by a pretend one.
I wrapped my arms around myself to steady the trembling. I’d been plagued with gooseflesh and shivers from the second I’d seen the look on Luke’s face. He hadn’t said a word, but I’d known immediately.
I glanced down at my dress and tugged uselessly at the too short hem. My second-hand garb would have to do. I pressed my hand against my stomach to calm the butterflies. I wasn’t sure I could go through with this.
I walked out to the living room. Luke stood up from the big chair. Jericho and Cash sat like stone statues on the couch. Their shock at the news was still fresh on their faces. I was feeling that same shock through my entire body, and I felt sick from it.
My hands and knees were shaking again, and I could do nothing to stop them. “Luke, I can’t go. I can’t do this.” Even my voice was not my own.
He nodded. “I’ll call Dr. Palmer and let him know. But remember, they’ve been waiting twenty-two years to see their daughter. And I think they will be fucking amazed when they meet her.”
I sniffled. “Don’t make me cry again. I already look ridiculous with my bulbous nose and red eyes,” I sobbed. “How can I do this? How can I meet two complete strangers and pretend they are my parents? How the hell did this happen?”
Cash and Jericho got up to leave the room. “No,” I said. “Don’t you two waddle out of here like chickens. You two were part of my family, my fake family. How the fuck did this happen?”
Cash looked down at the ground. “I had no idea, Angel. I swear to you. Gunner never said a word. If he had…”
Jericho walked over and put his arms around me. “You’re my sister and best friend, Evie. Nothing can change that ever. I’m sorry for what your mom— for what Angelica did, but my life would have sucked without you.”
I pressed my face into his shirt in a pathetic attempt to stop the tears.
“What do you want to do, Angel?” Luke asked.
I lifted my face, and Jericho lowered his arms. My head spun. I looked at the three men standing around me, they were my family, they would always be my family. If nothing else, I always had them. I took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
***
I’d kept my arm pressed against my stomach for the entire ride to keep from getting sick.
After making Luke turn the car around twice, which he’d done without argument, we turned the corner onto the street where the people lived. In my mind they were still ‘the people’. I couldn’t see how it was possible for me to ever think of them as my parents, as harsh as that seemed. But in my head they were still two people, two doctors, who’d had to endure the unexplained loss of their baby. I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever fill that void.
The street already seemed like a foreign place to me. Every lawn was perfectly mowed and in shades of green that were so rich, they looked fake. The houses were like something out of a magazine with crisply painted walls, shiny window frames and elegant front doors. “Is it too late to turn around?” I asked.
Luke pulled the car over and looked at me. “I can’t even pretend to know what you’re going through right now. But I can tell you this— you are exceptional in every way, Angel. You are incredibly smart, unbelievably beautiful and so unique that there is no one else like you on this whole fucking planet. You grew up in that strange compound, but you are far more sophisticated and knowledgeable than any girl I’ve ever met. To be honest, I don’t know if you would have turned out this amazing if you’d grown up in one of these fancy houses. They are going to be blown away when they meet you. I promise. And whatever happens—” He leaned over the console and kissed me. “—you are the most important part of my life, and I’m here for you.”
My throat tightened as he spoke. “Don’t ever leave me, Reno.”
“Not a chance in hell.” He looked questioningly at me, and I nodded. He drove away from the curb, and we coasted another few blocks before he pulled over again. “We’re here.”
The massive two story house peered down at us from atop its grassy perch. The windows sparkled in the sunlight that filtered through a massive tree, growing up from the center of the yard. A white porch surrounded the entire front of the house, and a set of wicker chairs with floral printed cushions sat in one corner.
“I’ve never been in a house like this,” I said.
“Me neither.” He got out and walked around to my door. I managed, somehow, to step out of the car. I took hold of Luke’s arm and then pulled him to a st
op on the third step up the walkway to the house. “Maybe you should go in there first. Maybe you need to tell them more about me and tell them what I did yesterday. Maybe they won’t even want to meet me.”
“Fine, I’ll go up and mention that you saved the life of a federal agent yesterday and that it wasn’t the first time you’d done so.”
“Luke, you know what I mean.” I was on the verge of tears again. “Please. Oh, forget it.” I let go of his arm. “I can’t do this.”
Luke reached for me, but I swung my hand back and accidentally bopped him on the nose. “Angel, stop. You belong here.” He threw his arms around my waist, and I struggled to get out of his grasp.
“Take me home, Luke, please. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere.” I grabbed at his arms, but he was too strong. He pulled me closer and held me against him so I couldn’t move or wiggle. “Angel,” he said.
“I’m not Angel or Evangeline. I don’t even have a real name,” I sobbed.
“Angel,” he spoke again. And then it dawned on me that he’d said my name not to bring me out of my moment of hysteria but to get my attention. I looked slowly back toward the house.
A man stood in a light blue dress shirt and black slacks watching us from the top of the porch. He was tall and slender with broad shoulders, shoulders that seemed to be bearing the weight of all this. Luke lowered his arms slowly as if he worried I might bolt. The thought crossed my mind more than once before I willed my feet to turn around and move up the steps.
He had large, expressive green eyes, the man who was my true father. Father, what a foreign word that was to me. I’d never called anyone dad, and now he stood in front of me as if he’d just been conjured up out of smoke. “Lyndsey.”