AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oriana opened her eyes, returning to reality. “Oh. Apparently so. If they don’t decide to bail at the last minute.”
“They’ve thought long and hard about it,” Chuck said, as though he were reprimanding her in her teenage years. “This has been a whirlwind of a summer for them.”
Oriana nodded, unable to look her father in the eye.What would he think when everything came to the surface? Would he think she was a fraud?
“How are Hilary’s eyes?” Alexa asked.
“All signs point to healing,” Chuck said. “Although it sounds like it’ll be a long road. But you know, that ex-boyfriend of hers decided to move to Nantucket to be with her and his daughter?”
“What! The one who left all those years ago?” Meghan asked.
“The very same,” Chuck said. “Apparently, he wised up the minute he realized how short life can be.”
“Too bad he missed his daughter growing up…” Reese sighed.
Oriana eyed her husband, her wonderful protector and best friend, and her heart thumped with the memory of how their love had grown over the years and how powerful it was. In all those years, Oriana had never considered telling Reese the truth about what she’d done. She hadn’t wanted to see the disappointment in his eyes. She hadn’t wanted him to share that secret.
She hadn’t wanted him to know that she had been willing to do anything to succeed.
Long after her extended family left that evening, Oriana was in the kitchen, washing the dishes and struggling to get herself to think about anything else, when the doorbell rang. A shiver ran up and down her spine.
“I’ll get it!” Alexa called as she raced through the kitchen and into the foyer. After she opened the door, she called out, “It’s for you, Mom! A letter?”
Oriana closed her eyes, frozen with fear. The water continued to rain down from the faucet. They’d found her. They weren’t willing to let her rest.
“Bring it here, please,” Oriana said, her voice cracking. She turned off the water and dried her hands as Alexa flounced in, passing the envelope off to her.
“It must be from a neighbor or something?” Alexa suggested as she opened the fridge to grab a can of La Croix. “Since it just has your name on it. Maybe a birthday invitation?”
“Probably,” Oriana said, placing the envelope to the side.
Alexa eyed her mother curiously. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Later.”
“I want to know who it’s from!”
Oriana swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head. “I’m not worried about it, honey.” The worst thing in the world was getting her daughter involved in this.
Alexa’s nose twitched with annoyance, but then, she shrugged and spun back toward her bedroom. “All right. Good night, Mom.”
“Good night, honey.”
Immediately after Alexa reached the second floor, Oriana grabbed the envelope and fled to the bathroom. With the door locked behind her, she tore open the envelope, her fingers shaking. There, in the same font, were the words:
If you don’t cough up three million by the end of September, I’ll reveal everything.
I’ll be in touch.
ChapterFive
September 1998
New York City in September was a revelation. After a long, hot summer stuck in her crummy apartment, Brea felt fresh and alive, zipping through Manhattan in a second-hand dress that had originally cost much more than her rent, en route to Oriana’s apartment. Oriana had called her over to tell her “some news.” And Brea had a hunch she already knew what it was.
Just before Brea hit Oriana’s street, she turned left toward a pay phone, where she pushed quarters into the machine and called her love, her fiancé, Kenny. Kenny answered on the third ring, sounding groggy.
“Hello?”
