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“I pray he will,” said Ainsley, “but I don’t know. No one does, but we’re really hoping the neurologist can give us a clearer idea after this assessment. So can I tell Marlowe you’ll hold off? Maybe until tomorrow?”
Ace struggled to swallow, feeling as if a walnut had lodged inside his throat, shell and all. “Yeah,” he said, his voice strained. “Of course I can do that. For Dad, and you and all of our siblings. And Genevieve, of course.” Even if his stepmother didn’t completely trust him again, he knew she’d been through hell of late and bore her no ill will.
Shaking it off, he asked, “So are you heading back to the ranch to get some rest now, or over to the office? Because if you don’t mind, I could use a ride. I need to catch a shower and a few hours’ sleep before I—”
“I’m afraid we aren’t done here, Ace,” she said, straightening in her seat and putting on what Ace recognized from all the years they’d lived and worked together as her lawyer face. Which often meant she was about to lay some hard truth on him.
Bracing himself, he asked, “What is it?”
“A lot happened while you were away,” she said before cutting to the chase, “but specifically, we need to talk about—about your biological mother.”
His heart kicked in his chest, since that was the last thing he’d expected. “You mean—you’ve found the nurse who switched me with—with our parents’ real son?”
“We’re almost one hundred percent positive we know who she is. Only she hasn’t lived under the name Luella Smith in decades. And she’s come a long way from the young maternity nurse and single mother she once—”
“Who is this woman? Where is she?” he demanded, his head spinning under a barrage of questions.
Her shoulders tense, Ainsley blew out an audible breath. “I know this is going to come as a tremendous shock, Ace, and I’m so sorry, especially after everything you’ve been through.”
“Please don’t pussyfoot around it. I need to know the truth. Now.”
Her gaze softening, she nodded. “She’s here, in Mustang Valley. She’s been in the area for years now. And I’m afraid you know her.”
“Her name, Ainsley,” he said through clenched teeth.
“It’s Micheline,” she told him. “Micheline Anderson.”
“But that’s—That can’t be right.” The cafeteria’s outer walls seemed to whirl around him. Or maybe it was just his head, because this was impossible. “That Being Your Best You motivational speaker woman? The one who owns the Affirmation Alliance Center just outside town?”
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s her. And I’m sorry to tell you, the news is even worse than that. What she’s been doing—the talks, the acts of charity, and her corporate training sessions—might all look good on the surface, but she’s about helping herself and not self-help. Most of her followers have no idea. They’re brainwashed to thinks it’s all legit, but there’s a core group that’s been funneling money from various illegal schemes back to her.”
A buzzing started in his ears as she told him about what she and Santiago had gone through at the Marriage Institute—and what they’d discovered. But as horrifying as it was to imagine his sister having been in danger, his brain still couldn’t accept that the same woman he’d occasionally crossed paths with at cocktail parties for charitable events, an attractive, older blonde who dressed for success and always seemed to attract a horde of eager admirers.
Though he’d never been especially impressed by the platitudes she spouted as if they were nuggets of ancient wisdom, he had to ask himself, if she were really his biological mother, wouldn’t she have at least have been curious enough to try to make conversation with him—or even occasionally look his way?
“Are you listening to me, Ace?” Ainsley was looking at him strangely. “I was just telling you how our IT guy, Daniel—”
“I know who Daniel is, for heaven’s sake.”
“—traced back that email saying that you’re not a real Colton back to that dark web geek who sent it, Harley Watts. Spencer says Watts still isn’t talking, but—”
His head spinning, Ace blurted, “How does any of this connect Micheline back to me?”
“Watts is one of those AAG cult members, it turns out. Micheline’s not admitting that she knew anything to do with him sending out those emails or has any connection whatsoever, but there’s no refuting those photographs. You can see for yourself from the photos, if you disregard the style and age changes, that Micheline is definitely Luella Smith.”
“But if it’s true, if she really switched me for the real Ace Colton—” It would never feel less than surreal to say that “—what could she be up to now, exposing her own crimes forty years later?”
“That’s what terrified me so much about overhearing her saying it’s time to put her big plan into motion. What does she have in store for us?”
“Whatever it is,” Ace said grimly, “I have absolutely no doubt it’s bad news for our family. And maybe not only the ones we know about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, “that we still don’t know what she’s done with—with the child that she stole. Where the devil is our brother, and how does he figure into her scheme?”
Ace knew that his siblings had hired a private investigator in an attempt to find “Luella Smith’s” missing son. They’d even come across someone claiming to be the true heir, but that guy had turned out to be nothing but a phony opportunist.
“We still haven’t been able to track down our—our real brother,” said Ainsley, “only I can tell you we’ve learned that Micheline did raise a son, Jake Anderson.”
