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Hawk had learned more about Helen and Amber Taylor during his investigation and it all pointed to Helen being as good a mother as Hera. It hurt to think it had all started with a kidnapping. She couldn’t imagine how her sister would feel to find that out. Choking out a goodbye to Hawk, Ellie was already mentally dialing Sandor’s number when she disconnected her call with the world renowned investigator.
Sandor swore in Greek when Ellie told him what she had learned. “I’m so sorry,agape mou . But we will not let this situation tear lives apart.”
He said it with such confidence that she believed him.
“What am I going to do?”
“We begin by telling your father.”
“We?”
“Naturally. You do not think I would leave you to do this thing alone, do you?”
She had no right to call on his support since their breakup, but she wasn’t about to turn him down. “Thank you.”
Sitting in his favorite armchair close to Ellie’s place on the couch in his oversize living room, her father paled as Ellie told him all that Hawk had learned so far.
“So, this woman…Helen Taylor…most likely kidnapped my daughter and brought her up to believe she was the baby she had lost two months before?”
“Yes, that’s what we think.” Sandor held Ellie close to him with one strong arm and she wasn’t about to protest.
Nor did she protest him answering for her. She was shaking inside from the stress and worried that talking about her sister was once again going to prove too much for her dad.
Ellie added, “Her husband had died in the tragic car accident that sent her into early labor. Hawk thinks the similar circumstance surrounding mine and Amber’s births may have triggered the kidnapping.”
“But the woman was a good mother?” her dad asked in a hoarse voice.
“From all that Hawk could discover, she was exemplary in every way. She really loves her daughter. She lives for her.” Ellie kept the wistfulness from her voice.
It was wrong to envy her sister a lifetime with a loving parent, especially knowing that she would face the pain of difficult revelations soon enough. But part of Ellie couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to be raised by someone who considered her more than an adjunct in his life.
“I think we should approach Helen Taylor first,” Sandor said.
“I agree.” Her dad ran his hand over his face and sighed. “She’s no doubt been living in abject terror of being caught out for more than two decades. We need to deal with her first.”
Ellie had reached the same conclusion. “It’s going to be awful for everyone. I’ve never met the woman, but I can’t help but pity her. Whatever led to her taking Amber, she really seems like a decent person who loves her daughter.” She took a deep breath and said what needed saying. “I don’t want the authorities brought in. This is going to be hard enough on everyone without that.”
Her dad nodded. “We will find out what happened…why she took my daughter and kept her…and we’ll go from there.”
Relief that he was taking the news so well and that her father was being so tolerant flowed through Ellie. “You’re a lot more understanding about this than I expected you to be.”
He grimaced, his light blue eyes shadowed with guilt and pain. “I can’t get past the fact that she gave Amber the love I withheld from you. Maybe you would have been better off if she’d taken you both.”
Ellie didn’t know what to say. She was a poor liar, so she could not claim she’d hadn’t had the same thought. Until her dad had “gotten human” she would have questioned whether losing her would have impacted his emotions at all. She felt guilty for thinking that way and knew it was wrong, but she’d spent most of her life believing that if she were to disappear—for whatever reason—the only thing her father would feel is a sense of failure in living up to his responsibilities.
She was beginning to believe she meant more than that to him now, but twenty-four years of thinking a certain way did not disappear overnight.
Letting her heart lead, she dropped to her knees beside his chair and hugged him. “I don’t regret the fact that you raised me.”
That, at least, wasn’t a lie. No matter what strange thought had flitted through her head upon discovering each new aspect of this situation, she loved her dad. She always had. The more he told her about her mom, the more Ellie realized in that way, she took after the woman who had died before she’d had a chance to hold her babies.
