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Chapter 19
Tad had been expecting a death certificate. Really, really needed one. The text that he opened as soon as he ended his call was not a death certificate.
It was a coroner’s report. A confirmation of the deceased’s identity and the manner and cause of death. Not a matter of public record.
More than a death certificate.
Jeffrey Muldoon Patrick. Aged 23. Death by opiate ingestion.
It didn’t get much more official than that.
Or more convincing, either. He’d had Dana’s birth certificate from the beginning, but got Ethan’s now, too. He knew that Ethan’s real name, his birth name, was Jeffrey Patrick O’Connor.
Named after his father, just as Miranda had said.
Thank God. She was in no danger. Miranda and Ethan really were safe. The giddy feeling of relief carried him to dinner at a place not far from his apartment. And to the grocery store to restock some essentials afterward.
If only he could tell her, be honest with her. This was good news. She should be the one buoyed by it.
But he couldn’t break the chief’s faith in him, break his word to a man of honor.
No matter how much he wanted Miranda to be happy.
This mission belonged to Chief O’Connor. He had a right to determine how he reintroduced himself to his daughter. He knew Dana. Tad only knew Miranda.
But if Tad could somehow get Miranda to tell him the truth about her husband—take the huge risk of exposing her past to him... No, he still couldn’t break his word to the chief. If he acted too soon, if Miranda was angry with her father, as the chief believed, and he didn’t give O’Connor a chance to mend fences, she could very well cut him off again.
He couldn’t be responsible for a hero losing his family for the second time. Or for Miranda and Ethan—Dana and Jeffrey—losing their chance to be reunited with the man who adored them both, even though he and Jeffrey, aka Ethan, had never met.
In other words, it was none of his business. Shit.
When the list of car accidents came over his burner phone later that evening, Tad perused it carefully, but wasn’t surprised to find there’d been no fatal or near-fatal crash involving anyone named Jeff, or any other man in his early twenties, in or near Asheville around the time of Ethan’s conception.
As he’d suspected, Miranda’s story had been a lie.
* * *
Living a lie had never been harder for Miranda than after she’d started sleeping with Tad. So many times she’d wanted to call him and tell him the truth about herself. She could trust him with the truth.
She knew she could.
And yet something held her back.
Sara Edwin’s advice, for one. And the fact that Tad exhibited signs of a tendency she knew all too well from her father—one of the things she’d admired about him, actually. An inability to let injustice just lie there. Tad was a detective. A damned good one based on what he’d told her. He’d been willing to risk his life without hesitation to save a little girl.
There was no way he’d sit idly by, letting her and Ethan live in constant danger of having her father find them. He’d take on the man the state of North Carolina revered. He’d want her to prosecute her father.
He’d probably believe she could win.
What she knew was that there wasn’t enough evidence. She’d never told anyone about the years of beatings. At first, because she’d felt responsible. And because she’d loved him. Because he was her only security and support. Her only family. If she didn’t have her father, who did she have? There were no grandparents in her life. No aunts and uncles. Her mom’s parents were both gone. Her father’s dad had beaten him for much of his life. She’d never met her paternal grandmother, either.
Her father had an older brother whom she’d never met.
If she’d lost her father, she’d have been a ward of the state, and the one or two times she’d told him she’d rather be that than live with him, he’d not only punished her for the words, but had brought home reports of some of the things that happened to wards of the state. Of course, now she knew that most children in foster care were lovingly and well cared for. But back then...
Didn’t matter. There was no way she’d be able to prosecute her father without evidence. No charges to file against him. Just like the courts couldn’t file anything against Devon on Marie’s behalf. Not yet, anyway.
You had to wait for the abuser to abuse in a big way in order to get away from him, and then you’d have a chance.
