CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

C HAPTER T HIRTY -T HREE

Sunday night, as she watched television with Trey and Mac, Shannon tried to play it cool when her cell rang. “It’s Chloe,” she said as she stepped out of the living area. A minute later, she returned to let them know Chloe was upset and needed her. If they didn’t both feel so bad for Chloe with Wesley’s cheating and Blake being in jail, they might have protested. But not tonight.

“How long will you be?” Trey asked.

“An hour,” Shannon said. “Maybe longer.”

Mac said, “We won’t watch Barbie until you get back.”

“No. Don’t wait up, okay?”

“Okay,” Mac said.

“Let Chloe know we’re thinking of her,” Trey said.

“I will.” Shannon grabbed her backpack on the way out the door. The last time she’d peered out the window, it was still dusk. Now it was dark. The only sound was her footfalls on the sidewalk. As she approached Chloe’s house, she picked up her pace, almost at a jog, until she saw Chloe’s car parked at the corner of Forty-Fifth and M.

She opened the car door and hopped into the passenger seat. Expecting to see a tired, broken woman behind the wheel, she saw instead the same woman who had chased off Devin Hawke when the Channel 10 News van showed up. Chloe looked sharp in her black leggings, black turtleneck, and black combat boots. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. “Did you bring your picklock?” she asked.

“I did,” Shannon said as she gathered her hair and tied it in a ponytail. She reached into her backpack and pulled out her phone and put it on silent. The picklock came out next. When they got out, she would carry it in her back pocket. Everything else would stay in the car.

Chloe turned on the engine and pulled onto the road. “I’m going to park near the Hansons’ around the corner. The family is in Hawaii.” No sooner had she turned onto the next street over than she pulled to the curb and turned off the engine. “When we get out, follow me. Stay close. Don’t look around. Make like we do this every night. Nothing to see here.”

Shannon was taken aback by how effortlessly Chloe slipped into the role of amateur detective, as though it were second nature to her. Clad in all black, Chloe exuded a sense of confidence, focused on the task ahead of them. Shannon felt proud of her for agreeing to the plan. And yet, it niggled at her because she knew they were taking a big risk. If they got caught, they could be arrested. What then?

Within minutes they were standing outside Rosella’s side gate. Chloe reached over the gate and undid the latch. So far, so good. Their footsteps echoed against the silence as they crept past a neat row of garbage cans. Shannon was just beginning to relax when her foot hit an empty bottle and sent it rolling across cement. She tried to reach for the bottle, but it rolled closer to the fence, out of view. Five steps later, the neighbors’ light came on.

Chloe yanked on Shannon’s arm, pulling her to the ground next to her.

“The Abbotts,” Chloe whispered into her ear.

They heard footsteps. Someone drew closer, the beam of a flashlight shining through the slats in the fence separating his property from Rosella’s.

“Do you see anything?” a woman asked.

It was Dianne. There was worry in her voice.

“Must have been a stray cat,” he said.

Once they heard the squeak of a sliding door, they remained still. Shannon started counting to herself. She got to thirty when Chloe gave her a tug. Time to get going.

Her heart was racing. The thought of breaking and entering was much different from actually doing it. She breathed through her nose and out through her mouth as they moved onward until they arrived at the brick patio. Shannon had hoped for a much smaller patio. This one was at least twenty by fifteen feet.

“Where was the key last time?” Shannon asked, her voice a whisper.

“I don’t recall. We’re going to have to get on our hands and knees,” Chloe said. “Take it slow. Use your hands to feel every brick. I’m going to start over there. You start here.”

Shannon did as Chloe said. Haste makes waste , the one thing she’d learned from Mr. Ferguson, she thought, as she used the tips of her fingers to try and wriggle each brick. She took her time, time they didn’t have. Trey would begin to worry if she was gone for too long. She was on number twenty-seven when a brick came loose.

She felt butterflies in her stomach as she wriggled the brick free and set it to the side. She felt around inside the gap. Her palms were sweaty. Her fingers brushed over metal. Her heart pounded against her ribs. The key. After all this time, it was still in its hiding place. Shannon crawled over to Chloe and held the key up, in front of her face. “I found it!” Shannon felt a profound sense of triumph.

Chloe let out a squeal and then slapped her hand over her mouth. They threw their arms around each other and got to their feet. Once again, Shannon followed Chloe back the way they had come. They slipped through the gate, squeezed their way between the hedges and the front of the house. “Stay here,” Chloe said. “When you see the door open, get inside as quickly as possible.”

Shannon nodded and waited. They were so close, and yet so far. If the detectives hadn’t been able to find any clues inside Rosella’s desk, what made her think she could find something? The door came open. Bending over, she rushed inside. She could hardly believe they had made it this far without being seen.

“No lights,” Shannon said.

Chloe nodded. “Hang tight to the railing as we head upstairs.”

When they made it to the top of the landing, Shannon began to feel queasy. Images flickered through her mind like an old black-and-white film. Seeing Rosella slumped over her desk, all that blood, her finger twitching, and the gurgling sounds she’d made as she tried to tell Shannon something. Something important.

“Are you coming?” Chloe asked.

Shannon shook it off. She needed to keep going. As soon as she stepped into the office, she pointed at the brass statue on the desk. “There it is. The skeleton key.”

Chloe slid the key off the statue, located the hole to the lock, and slipped the skeleton key into position. There was a small click. The center drawer opened.

The inside of the drawer was pitch black. Shannon turned on her phone and used the flashlight app to locate the lever. Without waiting for Chloe to tell her what to do, she tugged on it. A tiny drawer at the far right of the desk sprang open. Shannon peered into the small space but didn’t see anything.

“Here!” Chloe whispered. Between a stash of unused envelopes was a small cord with a bronzed bead at the end. She pulled on it. A long whirring sound ensued, but no drawers or compartments sprang open. Shannon used the flashlight to look over the desk, but she couldn’t find anything. And yet the whirring sound was the same noise she’d heard the day she’d turned away while Rosella fiddled with the desk.

“It has to be here somewhere.” Shannon turned off the flashlight and slipped her phone into her back pocket. Blindly, as she had done with the bricks outside, she swept her fingertips over every nook and crevice until her fingers brushed over a small round piece of brass. She pressed down on it. Nothing happened.

Refusing to give up, she used both hands to feel around. Bingo!

There were two round discs, both cold to the touch. When she pressed down on both metal discs at the same time, another drawer, this one the length of the desk but only a quarter inch in height, came partially open.

“You did it!” Chloe whispered into her ear.

Shannon tugged gently on the face of the drawer until it slid all the way open. Inside was a single piece of paper, an article cut from a newspaper. Once again, Shannon used the flashlight from her iPhone to have a look. They leaned close, their heads touching as they read the newspaper clipping.

“What is this?” Chloe asked before she had finished reading. “Blake,” she said, clearly disappointed. “What does this have to do with Blake?”

Shannon raised a hand to silence her. Rosella must have saved the article for a reason. She was meticulous. Shannon started from the beginning and read the article again, this time aloud, word for word. “Bradley Wilson,” she said. “He was eighteen months old when he went missing on July 21, 2020. The mayor of Elk Grove continues to shed light on his disappearance. The boy was taken four years ago, vanishing from Oak Street in broad daylight on a weekday.”

“Bradley,” Chloe said. “July!”

Chills swept over Shannon as she continued to read. “His mom, single, died a year earlier of an overdose. Bradley was living with his grandmother, who had since passed on. The boy had an unusual birthmark shaped like butterfly wings on his leg. Oh my God!”

“What is it?” Chloe asked.

“Bradley Wilson . This whole time I thought Rosella’s last words were Willis and son . She also said, He’s here .” Goose bumps raced up her legs and arms. Shannon grasped Chloe’s forearm. “The night you invited everyone over to discuss what happened to Rosella, Mac was watching over the smaller kids when Archer tripped and fell. When she lifted his pant leg to see if he was bleeding, she saw a pale-blue mark that looked like the wings of a butterfly.”

“You think Archer might be Bradley Wilson?”

“I’m saying he is Bradley Wilson. How many little boys have a birthmark resembling a butterfly? Rosella was adamant when she said the Alcozars were hiding something. She was onto them.”

A noise sounded somewhere on the first floor—a rustling, creaky sound.

Chloe grabbed her arm so tight it hurt. “Someone’s trying to get inside. Did you lock the door?”

“I did,” Shannon said. “Maybe that was a branch scraping across a window.”

Chloe looked out the window across from her and shook her head. “There’s no breeze.”

“We need to hide.” Shannon started for the closet, but Chloe grabbed her hand and pulled her along with her. They exited the office, hurried across the landing, and made their way into what appeared to be Rosella’s primary bedroom. The curtains were pulled open, and moonlight poured in through the windows. Rosella’s bedroom was massive. There was a fireplace set in stone, a hand-knotted, abstract wool rug, and a leather couch with a row of decorative pillows. Chloe dragged her across the room and into a walk-in closet the size of Shannon’s own bedroom.

Shannon was about to question Chloe’s idea to hide in such a wide-open space when Chloe reached behind a designer bag on the shelf above the shoes and pushed a button. There was a whirring sound as a solid wall of mahogany to their left began to slide open, revealing a ten-by-ten-foot room with a bar and a small couch. Chloe pulled her inside and quickly flicked the switch on the wall. They didn’t say a word as the door began to close. Shannon’s pulse jumped when she heard a loud crash from downstairs.

The article, Shannon thought. Had she left it on Rosella’s desk or dropped it along the way? Shit. She slid her phone from her back pocket. There was no cell service. The reinforced walls were too thick. There was no intercom system or ham radio like she’d seen in a movie once. The house was built sometime in the early 1900s. They didn’t have cell phones then, and nobody had bothered to update the safe room.

Chloe was scrambling around in the corner of the room, behind a small table.

“What are you doing?” Shannon asked.

“I found a safe, but I don’t know the combination. Maybe there’s a weapon inside. Maybe a gun.”

“How did you know about this room?”

She continued fiddling with the safe as she talked. Shannon took a seat on the couch in order to hear her better.

“When Rosella and I were friends, I came to the house to pick her up for lunch. She said she had to grab something and disappeared upstairs. Fifteen minutes passed with no sign of her, so I headed up the stairs in search of her and heard frantic knocking. She had locked herself inside this room and had forgotten the code to get out.” Chloe pointed toward the door. “She had the switch installed a few weeks later.”

“I wish I had known Rosella back then.”

“Yeah.” After a few minutes, Chloe gave up trying to open the safe. She plunked down on the floor. “We have nothing to use to protect ourselves with.”

Shannon held up her picklock, which resembled a small screwdriver. It could do some damage, she thought, if she held strong and stayed focused. “Whoever is out there could be harmless,” she said. “Rosella’s murder has been all over the media. Everyone knows the house is empty. Maybe they’ll take a few things and run off.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Shannon tried to pick the lock on the safe. It was no use. She sat down next to Chloe and gave her leg a reassuring pat. “We need to sit tight.”

“I can’t stop thinking about Blake.” Chloe exhaled. “We wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t confessed to something he didn’t do. What was he thinking?”

“He was protecting Ridley.”

Chloe sighed. “Ridley would never have killed Rosella. She’s going through something, but she’s my daughter and I know her better than anyone. She’s hard on the outside and gooey soft inside.”

They fell silent and listened.

“I don’t hear anything,” Chloe said.

Shannon nodded. “This will probably sound stupid, but if someone had asked me in the past few days who I would want to be stuck in a safe room with, it would have been you.”

“Why me, for heaven’s sake?”

Shannon shrugged. “When I first met you and the others, I felt an instant sense of belonging. A warm and welcoming feeling. With you especially.”

Chloe smiled. “You’re sweet. I felt the same way about you when we met. We have compatible personalities.”

“I told Trey I felt a connection to you and the other women on the block. He believes it has something to do with my traumatic childhood.” She shook her head. “I’m not so sure.”

“What happened?” Chloe asked.

“Like millions of other babies, I was given up for adoption.”

Chloe stiffened.

“It’s okay,” Shannon said, thinking Chloe was feeling bad for her. “Nobody wanted me, and I don’t blame them. I was rebellious. I convinced every foster mom I was with that my bio mom was out there looking for me. I just wanted someone to help me find her.”

Chloe paled. “You were never adopted?”

“At the age of thirteen, the Fergusons adopted me. I regret never calling Mrs. Ferguson ‘Mom.’ She didn’t deserve that. I was sixteen when she died of cancer. Looking back, I should have moved out, but I was a minor and had nowhere else to go.”

“What about Mr. Ferguson?”

“Mr. Ferguson fell apart. He began to drink. It got ugly, and he would come into my room late at night. I had to start locking my bedroom door. He died on the second anniversary of his wife’s passing. Soon after, I reached out to Sierra Adoption Agency. I was twenty, too old to be pining for my mother.” Shannon released a laugh tinged with bitterness. “I thought I could handle the truth. But the agency sent me a letter letting me know my bio mom was not interested in meeting me. The whole thing sort of messed with my head. I had Mac and Trey. I had my own family. I thought I had everything I needed, but then why didn’t I ever feel whole?”

Shannon covered her hands with her face, unable to stop her emotions from getting the best of her. She’d never learned to find a way to simply be herself. And she thought she knew why: so many adoptees struggled with attachment issues—they became clingy, or they were distrustful and avoided people altogether. Because of this, Shannon walked on eggshells in her attempt to not be either of those things. She was aware of her sensitivity to rejection and abandonment, which was why she hadn’t opened up to Trey until earlier. Her lifelong journey to search for her biological roots had caused her nothing but anxiety and apprehension.

Shannon lifted her head and wiped her eyes. “Lots of people were given up as babies and went on to lead amazing lives,” she said to Chloe. “What is wrong with me?” She sighed. “I’m sorry. All of that was to say I’m glad we met, and I’m happy you’re here with me now.” She tried her best to regain some sense of composure. “I hope I haven’t freaked you out.”

Chloe hadn’t said a word, which made Shannon start to feel even more uncomfortable. “Don’t worry,” Shannon told her. “I’m not the clingy type. I won’t follow you around like a puppy dog after we get out of here.”

“Do you know your birth date?”

“Yes. I was born on May 26, 1983.”

Chloe swallowed.

A long stretch of silence followed. Had she upset Chloe?

“The agency contacted me when I was going through tough times,” Chloe said as she stared at her hands in her lap. “Wesley was having an affair at the time. I was devastated.”

Confusion settled around Shannon’s shoulders like a scratchy blanket. “What agency?”

Chloe didn’t answer, but she kept on talking. Shannon’s brows furrowed. Chloe was obviously distraught, but why?

“I was fifteen years old,” Chloe said, “when I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. The date was May 26, 1983.”

Shannon’s sharp intake of breath didn’t stop Chloe from continuing with her story.

“One peek at her and I knew I couldn’t give her away. I wanted to keep her.” Chloe looked at Shannon, her gaze searching. For what? What was she saying?

“She was my own flesh and blood. She was mine. Nobody could take her from me. But my parents had paid a lot of money to make sure I didn’t bring my baby home.” Chloe was looking at her hands again. “I had a fit. I told every nurse who entered my room that I was keeping my baby. Nothing they could say would change my mind. Finally, a kind-looking nurse with gray hair and green eyes told me it was crucial they check the baby’s heart rate and take measurements. She promised me she would bring her back. But she never did. And I never saw my daughter again.”

The hairs on the back of Shannon’s neck rose. She had been watching Chloe the entire time she was telling her story. For the first time since meeting her, Shannon saw the resemblance—the wider forehead and narrow chin. She thought of Blake, Ridley, and Rowan, all with the same heavy lower lip and turned-up nose as herself. Half siblings? Why hadn’t she noticed the likeness before? This couldn’t be happening. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Her muscles tensed. “You’re my mother, aren’t you?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

“It can’t be true,” Shannon said, the fog clearing from her head.

“But it is.”

“This had to be Rosella’s doing,” Shannon said, her adrenaline surging. “This was her way of making you suffer, too.”

“I’m not following.”

“Rosella must have known you had given me up as a child.” Shannon set her narrowed gaze on Chloe. “She knew, didn’t she? She even did a write-up on the Sierra Adoption Agency.”

“We did talk about it,” Chloe said. “It was Rosella who brought it up. I was shocked that she knew.”

Shannon’s muscles tensed. “I think I know why Rosella went to all the trouble of finding me.”

“I thought you said your professor had highly recommended you?”

“I talked to him. Rosella lied. The professor had never had a conversation with her about me.” Shannon couldn’t take her eyes off Chloe Leavitt. “You were right about one thing.”

“What’s that?” Chloe asked.

“Rosella Marlow didn’t dislike you—she despised you. She must have known you didn’t want to meet me. And after losing Daniel, she decided it might be interesting to find a way to bring me here and introduce us.” Shannon did her thinking out loud as she tried to piece the puzzle together. “Rosella must have had access to the agency’s files when she wrote the story. She must have seen the letter they sent to me letting me know you didn’t want to meet me.”

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want—”

Shannon talked over her, determined to finish her thought. “Rosella called me within months of losing her only son and asked me to work with her. After Caroline Baxter moved, Rosella contacted me again to let me know there was a house up for sale. A house on her block. A house two doors away from my long-lost mother,” she said bitterly. Shannon couldn’t take her eyes off Chloe as the cold, hard truth of the matter settled inside her. Heat rose to her face. “You told the agency you didn’t want to meet me?”

Chloe said in a voice she could barely hear, “It was bad timing—”

Shannon’s heart started beating fast. “You could have contacted the agency at any time, though. You could have changed your mind.”

Chloe reached for her hand, but Shannon pulled away, unable to contain the urge to react impulsively, her anger building and getting the best of her. “You should know we’re moving,” Shannon lied. “We’ve already picked a house in Midtown, a stunning Victorian.”

“You can’t move now,” Chloe said. “We’ve only just found each other.”

Shannon balked. “ Found each other? You have no idea what it’s like to spend your life questioning your self-worth and your value as you wonder why someone would give you up and not even consider taking a call. What did you think I was going to do? Barge into your house and fuck up your perfect life? All I wanted was ten fucking minutes to say hello and hear your voice. That’s all I wanted.”

“I’m sorry. I never wanted to give you up. I wrote you letters. And I thought of you every day.”

“Bullshit.” Shannon pushed herself to her feet and slapped the dust off her pants. “I’m leaving.” She jabbed a finger in Chloe’s direction. “Don’t worry about me, okay? I’ve made it this far without you. I’ll be fine.” She walked toward the switch she’d seen Chloe push earlier right as the door to the safe room came to life, whirring open on its own.

Shannon’s eyes grew round. What was happening? She grabbed hold of the picklock and held it out in front of her.

Chloe jumped to her feet.

Standing on the other side was Nicolas Alcozar. The man had transformed from a preppy attorney with slicked-back hair and fashionable eyeglasses into a man with a crazed look in his eyes. His hair was disheveled, his clothes rumpled. In one hand was the newspaper clipping they had found in Rosella’s desk. In the other was a gun.

Before he had a chance to point his weapon in their direction, Shannon lunged for him, gouging him in his side with the picklock. “Run!” she told Chloe.

Nicolas grabbed a fistful of Shannon’s shirt as she tried to get past him. She kicked him hard in the chest, got as far as Rosella’s bedroom door before she glanced back and saw that he had Chloe in a bear hug. Chloe bit his arm. He cried out, but she was unable to escape.

Shannon didn’t think; she simply reacted, running toward them and trying to jab him again with the picklock. He jumped, stumbled, and ended up bringing Chloe to the ground with him. Her head made a sickening thump when it hit the floor.

Nicolas got to his feet, the gun still in his grasp. His gaze was locked on Shannon’s as she sidestepped toward the fireplace, where she saw the wrought iron utensils out of the corner of her eye. She grabbed the poker and swung at the same time he fired a shot.

The poker hit the floor, clunking loudly as it rolled. Shannon had no idea who or what Nicolas had fired at until she felt a trickle of warmth running down her right arm.

Droplets of blood hit the floor.

She’d been shot.

Shock overrode any pain as her vision blurred. She thought she was hallucinating when a woman stepped into the bedroom. She was holding a gun, and it was aimed at Nicolas. “Drop the gun, Nicolas.”

He pivoted fast. “Kaylynn. What are you doing? Put that down.”

“It’s over, Nicolas. I told you to take him back home. I begged you. But you wouldn’t listen.”

“Archer is our son. I’ll never let them take him from us. Go home,” he told her. “Now!”

Leaning against the wall near the window, holding the hole in her arm to try and stop the bleeding, Shannon noticed Chloe crawling toward the wrought iron poker.

Every muscle in Shannon’s body quivered. Across from her, Chloe grabbed hold of the utensil, scrambled to her feet, drew back her arm, and swung straight and true, hitting Nicolas in the back. The gun flew from his grasp, clunked against the floor, and disappeared under the bed. Instead of going in search of the gun, Nicolas took two long strides before he reached his wife and swiped the gun out of her hands.

He turned toward Chloe, the barrel of the gun aimed at her head.

One shot rang out.

“No!” Shannon called, her heart sinking.

The thought of losing Chloe, the mother she’d been searching for her entire life, made her legs turn to mush as she melted to the floor. It was her fault Chloe was here, her stupid plan to break into Rosella’s house. With her back against the wall, Shannon’s gaze fell on Nicolas. He teetered on wobbly legs as if trying to catch his balance. What was going on? He pivoted slightly before falling forward, his body as stiff as a newly cut tree. The sound of his head striking the corner of the stone mantel was nauseating. His legs buckled and he toppled to the ground.

Shannon didn’t understand what had happened until she saw Jason standing inside the bedroom, legs set, gun drawn. He’d shot Nicolas.

“I never loaded my gun,” Kaylynn said before she rushed to her husband’s side and dropped to the floor so she could cradle his head in her lap. “Don’t leave me, Nicolas. I’m sorry. I just wanted it to stop.”

“I called the police,” Jason said. “Right after hearing the first shot fired. Who got hit?”

Chloe was fine, Shannon realized when the woman came to her aid. Chloe pulled her bloodied sleeve up in order to see the wound. “Shannon’s been hit.” Chloe pointed to the bed. “I need the bedsheet.”

Jason made quick work of pulling off the sheet. He used his teeth to rip the cloth into wide strips, the two of them working together to stanch the blood. By the time the police arrived, Jason was watching over Kaylynn and Nicolas, checking for a pulse. He made eye contact with Shannon and shook his head.