Page 268 of Taken Away

Aubrey’s fingers slipped off Bennett’s arm. The floor beneath her seemed to vanish, leaving her suspended in a sudden, suffocating freefall. Every locked door from her childhood, every unanswered question, every time her mother had wrenched her away from the mountains—it all violently snapped into place with a blinding, agonizing clarity.

She wasn’t just Mabel’s estranged niece.

She was Harold’s daughter.

Aubrey's knees nearly gave way.

Beside her, Bennett felt the rigid, white-hot shock radiating off her frame. His hand moved instantly to her shoulder, gripping her hard enough to anchor her to the earth, his jaw locked against the fury of what had been stolen from her.

Inside the conference room, Burke let the silence stretch for three agonizing seconds.

Then, without a pause, he shifted the weight of the interrogation.

“When did you tell him?”

Bennett stood perfectly still outside the conference room door.

Aubrey’s fingers were locked around his forearm.

Inside, no one spoke.

Not Burke.

Not Anne.

The sentence hung between all of them, though only two people in the room knew it had been heard.

Harold Blackwood was Aubrey’s father.

Aubrey stared through the narrow opening of the door, but all she could see was a sliver of the table, the edge of Burke’s folder, and the pale blue hem of her mother’s dress.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her knees weakened.

Bennett moved closer, his hand steadying her.

She didn’t look at him.

Inside the room, Burke’s voice remained calm.

“When did you tell him?”

Anne let out a breath that sounded trapped for thirty years.

“After he married Mabel.”

Aubrey’s breath caught.

“I found out I was pregnant, and I told him,” Anne said, her voice trembling now.

Silence.

“He said he would take responsibility.”

Another silence.

“But he wasn’t leaving Mabel.”