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My father’s forehead puckered. “Your grandmother?” he questioned. “She should be back in Boston.”
“She’s not,” I told him. “Her plan was to not go back to Boston until she had Seattle under her control. All this time, it was her.” I paused and blew out my cheeks. “Well, her and Seamus McDonough’s twin.”
“What?” The two men stared at me in disbelief.
“Okay, so there is a lot to tell you so—buckle up or something.”
My father sat at the edge of the bed, his soft emerald eyes on mine. He was listening. Not arguing about how it wasn’t possible or doubting what I was saying.
He was focused on me, his expression open and not closed off like it usually was when I brought up one of my theories.
“Okay,mo réalta,” he whispered. “Tell us what you found, little spy.”
CHAPTERELEVEN
There was violence coursing through my veins as my daughter told us her story.
Everything I knew had been a lie. One after another. By the very people who had practically raised me alongside Katherine. I always knew there was something off with Sheila when it came to her relationship with her daughter, but Kat never said anything. Never made mention of the kind of loneliness and abuse she suffered at the hands of her own kin.
Even Seamus was a disappointment. Knowing that he wasn’t the one responsible for Kat’s suffering eased only a fraction of the fury at what he and his mother had done. What every McDonough had done for too many years.
It made me wonder how long everything with Sheila had been in motion. Ava said that she had told her rather directly that Seamus wasn’t Katherine and Marianne’s father.
Marianne.
I’d tried to reach out to my wife several times over the last week while Ava fought for her life against fever and blood loss. She never once answered. Even the twins had tried to reach her.
Nothing.
What part had she played in Katherine’s death?
Ava was holding something back. I could feel it and see it in her face as she talked about what had gone down just hours before we rescued her. Her face flooded with doubt and apprehension when it came time to tell us about what the man named Kellan had done.
While Marianne watched.
Except I already knew.
Not that it made a difference. I would listen to what she had to say about Marianne either way. Ava pushed forward in her story, her breaths accelerating the closer she got to describing her torture.
Torture that my wife watched and did nothing about.
“All I had to do was threaten to slit his throat in their bed. Easy peasy. She would have done anything for Liam.”
There had been no small amount of glee in her voice when she’d told my daughter that. It was the very note that had caused me to doubt my daughter’s words. I used it as a barrier to keep the truth at bay. The truth I had always known but refused to reconcile.
The more Ava unraveled Marianne’s treachery, the more the picture revealed itself to me. Missing pieces from so many years ago slid into place without resistance.
I’d never questioned it before, but now I marveled at how easily Marianne had suddenly fit into our lives. We were kids at the time. Thirteen or fourteen, and she’d moved in down the street. She had been in all our classes and in Katherine’s after-school activities.
Her parents had been friends with Seamus. He’d had them over for dinner a few times. Those were the nights Sheila was away doing work for her charity out here. Now that I thought back on it, I never once saw Marianne and Sheila in the same room together. Not once.
Marianne was everywhere in our lives, and we just accepted that. When Katherine’s father had promised her to Noah Kelly, it was Marianne who had volunteered to take her place, and it was Marianne who ran to me crying with a broken face. She’d had proof that Noah had raped and beaten her because she wasn’t Katherine. Wasn’t what he wanted.
Another part of the puzzle that never quite fit correctly.
Noah had been adamant about his innocence. Said he couldn’t remember anything about that night. I’d chalked it up to him beating her while he was drunk. What if it had been more than that?
What if she had drugged him?
