Chapter 51

CHAPTER 51

A ndi took a moment to comprehend what had just been said, unsure if she’d heard correctly.

Instead of jumping in with questions—which was her nature—she waited to hear what the two women had to say. Whatever the truth was, this was Simmy and Juniper’s story. Not Andi’s or anyone else’s in the group.

“Did you say you think I’m your mom?” Simmy stared at her, a stunned look in her gaze. “I mean, I very well could be the surrogate who gave birth to you. It’s hard to say for sure, but your birth date matches. That’s the date I gave birth to my first baby via surrogacy. I remember all those dates.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out the truth for the past year and a half or so, ever since I realized my parents may not be my parents.”

Simmy shook her head, her gaze a mix of compassion and confusion. “No, sweetie. As a surrogate, I carried you. But I’m not your biological mother. I’m sorry.”

“In most cases, that’s true.” Juniper swallowed hard as she paused. “But not in mine.”

The gang sat in stunned silence as they waited to hear the rest of the story.

Juniper swallowed again and fanned her face as if unable to speak.

“I don’t understand how you could be mine,” Simmy finally said. “The embryo . . . it may or may not have belonged to your mom and dad. There was a big scandal with?—”

“I know,” Juniper finished, moisture rushing to her eyes. “I heard about it. About how the man who was brokering the deals was actually using embryos from himself and his first wife.”

Simmy nodded slowly as if carefully treading water.

Juniper let out a sigh. “I guess maybe I should start at the beginning.”

“Please do,” Simmy said quietly.

She pressed her eyes closed as if gathering her courage. Then she opened them again, a new determination staining her gaze before she began. “A year and a half ago, Peppermint convinced me I should do one of those DNA tests. She thought it would be fun. She’d done one herself and found out her family was from Germany and that she’s eight generations removed from being royalty or something crazy. I didn’t really put much stock into anything she said. But just for kicks, I decided to do a DNA test also. However, I didn’t tell my parents.”

“Why not?” Ranger asked.

“Because I told them that Pepper had done one, and they thought it was stupid. Said that the government was going to get ahold of those DNA records and put her in a database. They were adamantly against me doing it.”

“But you did it anyway?” Andi clarified.

“I had a little money saved up, and I decided to use that. I suppose I halfway did it out of rebellion. My parents had a lot of rules for me, and they drove me crazy at times. This one seemed so harmless, not like something that could hurt anybody.”

“So you got the results back? How did that point to the fact that your parents weren’t your parents?” Andi knew the details of what happened to Simmy, and the facts weren’t adding up in her mind.

Juniper’s gaze stopped on Simmy. “You were registered with one of those ancestry websites.”

Simmy’s cheeks flushed, but she nodded. “I signed up several years ago. My boss gave it to me as a Christmas present. I’m not sure why I did that even. I guess I was curious if I had other family out there. Nothing ever came of it, though. In fact, I forgot I even did it.”

“You were a match with me. So I started digging a little deeper. I knew my parents’ DNA wouldn’t be in the system since they were so against testing. But that led me down a rabbit hole that eventually led me to you.”

Simmy quickly shook her head, an almost panicked look in her eyes—and Simmy never looked panicked. “That’s not possible. The DNA would have to belong to someone else.”

“I struck up a conversation with my father. He admitted that he and my mom used a surrogate—but that was all he admitted. I began to do my own research into surrogates in the New York area that same year. That’s when I found an article about that surrogacy scandal.”

Simmy stared at Juniper in shock.

She took some time to process before asking, “What happened next?”

Juniper glanced at her lap. “What happened next is where things get a little complicated.”

Duke waited patiently to hear whatever Juniper would say next.

He hadn’t expected this twist. Did her story tie in with her parents’ murders somehow? He wasn’t sure yet.

“I felt betrayed, like I didn’t even know my own parents,” Juniper explained. “But I’d hit a dead end. I didn’t know how to find out the truth. So I hired someone to find some answers for me.”

Duke’s eyebrows shot up. “That doesn’t sound cheap.”

“It wasn’t. I couldn’t afford to do it. Not really. I had to borrow money out of my parents’ safe box.” She frowned and pressed her eyes closed. “Before I could pay them back, they discovered the money was missing. They blamed Caleb, which I hated. But I couldn’t correct them. I didn’t want them to know. Besides, they’d lied to me so I figured I could lie to them too. Looking back, it was so immature.”

“And that’s how you discovered Simmy?” Ranger’s voice still held an edge of protectiveness. No doubt, he didn’t want Simmy to get hurt in the midst of this.

“It is. The guy I hired was able to figure out that Simmy had changed her name after giving birth to me. That’s why I got confused.” Juniper’s gaze fluttered from her lap to Simmy as if she wasn’t sure how Simmy would react.

Did she fear Simmy would reject her?

Duke knew Simmy wouldn’t. But he could see where Juniper might be uncertain.

“I kept researching and discovered Simmy was a part of this true crime podcast.” She paused. “For the longest time, I didn’t want to dredge up anything about my parents’ murders. I wanted to forget what I’d learned. But then I realized you could help me find answers, that it was a win-win. That’s when I started trying to contact you.”

“I remember we got some emails from you a couple of months before we were able to respond.” Simmy tilted her head almost apologetically. “We’ve been getting an overwhelming amount of correspondence.”

“I understand.” Juniper glanced at her hands again. “I never told my parents any of this. I didn’t know how to. But I felt bad about deceiving them. I even wondered for a while if me digging up the past is what got them killed.”

“Why would you think that, sweetie?” Simmy squeezed Juniper’s hand again.

The motion seemed to give her another surge of strength, and Juniper sucked in a breath as if pulling herself together. “I knew the man who hired you to be the surrogate was a bad person. I knew he probably wasn’t operating alone, and when I started digging into my past, I wondered if that triggered something. I wondered if my parents had been killed to keep their silence and protect this guy’s secrets.”

A tear trickled down Simmy’s cheek. “Oh, sweetie. That’s a big weight for you to carry.”

Tears streamed from Juniper’s cheeks now too, and she quickly wiped them. “It has been.”

“Your parent’s deaths had nothing to do with you, Juniper,” Duke reassured her.

“I’m beginning to realize that. But there’s so much going on here, and I can’t help but wonder if I’d handled myself a differently if my parents would still be alive.”

“There’s far more at play right now than you realize,” Ranger said.

Silence fell as everyone seemed to process the conversation.

Then Simmy brushed Juniper’s hair behind her ear. “You’re really my daughter?”

She nodded. “That’s what I was told.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Mark to have done something to me. I was naive back then. They told me it was in vitro. But I suppose I could have been artificially inseminated. I don’t remember any of it. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions.” Simmy tilted her head, all her attention on Juniper. “I was on a quest to find my real father also. It led me here. I understand your desire to take a deep dive into your past.”

“My parents also had secrets,” Mariella added. “It seems like every family does.”

Duke rose, sensing some smaller, more private conversations needed to take place—conversations that not everyone needed to hear. “Maybe we should call it a night and get some rest. Then we can talk again in the morning. I have a feeling Simmy and Juniper may want some time alone.”

Both women nodded as if grateful for his suggestion.

Yes, they still had a lot to talk about. A lot to think about.

But the best thing the team could do right now was to rest their minds and restart these conversations in the morning.