He nodded, as if agreeing with her.
“I felt so blindsided. I didn’t know what to think when she showed me that picture—I still don’t. We’ve always said we could tell each other anything, that we wouldn’t keep secrets,” she said.
“Kate, I wasn’t keeping a secret. Belinda came out of nowhere with those lies. There was nothing to tell you—I haven’t thought of her in years,” he said.
“You didn’t seem honest yesterday,” Kate said. “Starting when I saw you with her in town. I felt like you wanted to hide something.”
“I was just shocked to see her,” Conor said.
Kate tilted her head. Even now, her antennae were up. He wasn’t telling her the full truth.
“Really?” she asked. “That’s all?”
“Kate,” he said, trying to hold her hand. She backed away, and she gave him a look that told him to stop.
“The reason I’m here,” she said, “is that I searched Belinda’s hotel room, looking for something, anything, to explain what’s going on. Belinda and Suzanne were very much connected. You were questioned by the police today, Conor. You might have been arrested if Joe and Tom hadn’t gotten you out of there.”
“I didn’t belong there,” he said. “That was spite on Garrett’s part. Because Belinda was his girlfriend, and she obviously had an ulterior motive in getting him to bring her to our wedding as his date.”
“Belinda told me she had your child,” Kate said slowly. “And Suzanne spent time in her room. She left her pen and ink and cards right there, in the desk.”
“Well, maybe they knew each other,” Conor said.
Kate barely heard him. She was focused on his face, that handsome Irish face that she loved so much. There was a faint rust-colored streak on his left cheekbone.
“You have blood on your cheek,” she said.
“I thought I washed it all off,” he said, his hand straying to the side of his face.
“From when you touched Belinda’s body,” Kate said.
“Because I thought it was you,” he said, his voice tight. “She was wearing your dress.”
“Conor,” Kate said, looking down and imagining what that must have been like for him.
At the same time, a realization had been building inside her. It had started last night, when Belinda had shown her the photo. Thoughts and impressions had filled her mind, when she was both sleeping and awake, but until now she had been able to push them away. She wished she could keep them from adding up into a whole that she would giveanything not to see. She pictured Suzanne last night and remembered how she had noted that the indigo flowers printed on her maxi dress matched her eyes.
“The ages are right,” Kate said.
“Whose ages?”
“Belinda’s and Suzanne’s. Yours and Suzanne’s. About twenty years apart.”
Conor’s expression darkened. Was it because he was catching up with her logic, figuring it out? Or was he upset that Kate was working out the puzzle pieces?
“The eye color is right too,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Suzanne’s your daughter,” Kate said.
“God, Kate—no!” Conor said.
“Your eyes,” Kate said. “The same blue as the baby in the photo, the same blue as Suzanne’s.” She paused, composing herself. “Had you ever met Suzanne before? Did you hold her when she was a baby?”
“This is crazy,” Conor said. “Kate, I didn’t have a child with Belinda.”
His voice broke, and it sent shocks through her whole body, cracking her bones as if they were ice. She wanted to reach for him, to steady herself and to hold him. He sounded so upset, and she had to believe he was telling the truth—at least as far as he knew it. What if Belinda had had his baby and just never told him about it?
