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Chapter Nine
Elise walked back towardthe Pontiac Trail Head with a headache brewing in the back of her skull. As a kind of insurance, she’d packed the diary and the photograph of Dean Swartz—proof that she was who she said she was.
Again, she appeared before her father’s house. She closed her eyes to picture them: the three Swartz siblings, running in and out during their youth, hollering and laughing.
If Alex was a tiny bit older than she was, and Tracey was even older than that...
It meant that they’d been alive, boisterous toddlers, while Dean and Allison Darby had fallen in love.
Elise had to guess that they hadn’t yet owned this house, not when Dean had operated as a stagehand.
The money had come later.
And now, the Swartzes did anything to protect it.
Elise walked in a kind of daydream toward the front door. Seconds after her knock, a maid appeared: dressed in dark jeans, a dark t-shirt, her hair pulled back. Her eyes were sunshiny; her skin tanned, probably from many days spent out by the lake. She was maybe thirty or thirty-five.
“Good evening,” she said. “I assume you’re Elise?”
“Thank you,” Elise said.
The maid opened the door wider to allow Elise to enter. The foyer itself was grand, ornate, with many old-world photographs and paintings of Mackinac Island. Another painting hung toward the back wall of the foyer, with what seemed to be Dean Swartz, his wife beside him.
His wife.
The wife he’d cheated on with Allison Darby.
Elise walked behind the maid, all the way down the hallway and then to the left, to a large room with large windows, glistening wooden floors, and a grand piano in the far corner. Dean Swartz himself sat at a long dining room table, with his hands stretched out across the wood and his eyes studying the fancy china set across the table.
“Mr. Swartz? Elise is here.”
Dean stood as quickly as he could, an act that seemed to make his bones creak. His smile was every bit as bright as it was in the photograph Elise had tucked away in her mother’s diary. He was Brad as an old man; his eyes seemed to exude love and confidence.
“Good evening, Elise. I was so worried you’d already left the island and wouldn’t come,” Dean said.
Elise stepped toward him and shook his hand.
Handshaking hadn’t been on her list of “Top Things To Do With Dad.”
But here they were like they’d just finished a business deal.
“I have to apologize again for the mishap with the Willow Grove,” he said, dropping her hand. “For some reason, nobody informed me of the issue. When I learned that one of our guests had just been abandoned, I was heartsick. I’m glad you accept this dinner with me today. I know it can’t possibly make up for all you’ve gone through, but...”
Elise realized she hadn’t spoken yet. She swallowed and tried to think of words. Any words. She was a writer, wasn’t she? Writers were meant to be articulate.
“It’s really okay,” she said.
Wow. How original.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Dean said. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Elise walked delicately toward the only other china setting at the table. As she sat, Dean sat along with her. They paused for a long time.
It was increasingly clear that Alex hadn’t reported to Dean what Elise was “up to.”
He didn’t know about the long-lost daughter thing.
“You have a beautiful house,” she said.
