Page 72 of The Locked Ward
He took you away. That’s what we paid him to do.
Honey’s hideous revelation rings in my ears. It’s like I’ve been sucker punched; I can’t catch my breath.
“Why?” I finally gasp.
“Because I wanted one baby, not three.”
My mind swims as I struggle to make sense of her words. She seems to grow impatient with me, stalking to the bar to pour herself a fresh drink. The remains of her first one are still on the floor, but she just steps over the puddle studded with shattered crystal.
I hold the most important cards, I remind myself. It helps me regain my voice.
“I’m going to need a better explanation.”
“Reece, will you give us a moment?” Honey asks.
He steps out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Honey tosses back a big gulp of her drink and exhales. “My husband couldn’t get me pregnant, so we decided to do a private adoption. Then, a few months before the young lady gave birth, I discovered I’d gotten pregnant against all odds.”
I notice the way she puts the infertility blame squarely on her husband and refers to my and Georgia’s birth mother as “the young lady.” Honey is as cold as the ice clinking in her crystal glass. I can’t imagine how horrible it must’ve been for Georgia to grow up under her watch.
“Then—surprise!—two babies were born. Technology wasn’t as sophisticated back then, and no one realized she was having twins.”
Honey swallows more of her drink. The alcohol seems to have a calming effect on her; her composure returns.
“Ray—your dad—desperately wanted a baby; I could see the longing in his eyes that first night, when Stephen and I brought you and Georgia home. You had colic and you screamed your head off. I was losing my mind, but Ray just stepped in and took over. I’ve never met a man with so much patience.
He walked with you for hours and hours, that night and the next, even though he was off duty.
He was the only one you’d take a bottle from, too. ”
“So you just… gave me to him?” Like she was casting off an ill-fitting item of clothing, I think.
“It was a kindness, don’t you see? Ray and his wife—what was her name?”
“Cynthia,” I say quietly, feeling my cheeks burn. “My mother’s name was Cynthia.”
“Yes, he and Cynthia desperately wanted a child but had given up hope of being able to have one, he told me. You even had dark hair, like he did. Georgia had light hair, like me. It felt destined.”
She separated us by picking the most desirable baby, like she was plucking the ripest apple from one of her espalier trees.
“Why did you pay him off if they wanted me so badly?”
Honey’s eyes dart toward the door. Mine follow her gaze. I think I hear a noise just outside it, but I’m not sure. The emotions roiling in me are dulling my senses.
Is Reece leaning against the door, ready to burst inside? I may be outnumbered, but I have evidence in my safe-deposit box, I remind myself. Plus, I have a gun.
“We handled all the legal papers, but they couldn’t stay around here, not when they suddenly had a new baby. People would ask questions. We gave him a generous bonus so they could take you somewhere else.”
I can’t imagine any universe in which Honey would spontaneously be generous.
“You didn’t want anyone to know you got rid of an extra baby who was inconvenient,” I challenge. “You paid him off to keep him quiet. Did you make them sign something? That’s why my parents never told me about my twin.”
Honey’s eyes narrow. “If they didn’t tell you, then who did?”
I’m not going to let her steer this conversation. “You told everyone my father stole from you. Jewelry, silver—you made that up so you’d have an excuse for why he disappeared.”
She shrugs. “He got what he wanted and I didn’t hear him complaining.”
I keep pummeling her with questions.
“I have a video showing Senator Dawson leaving Annabelle’s apartment late on the night of his wedding anniversary. Maybe you don’t care. But don’t you think it’ll raise questions, especially since bank records will show that Georgia paid for the investigation?”
I’m bluffing; Georgia might have paid cash, for all I know. But Honey doesn’t react. She merely refills her drink. I can’t begin to imagine how much alcohol is already coursing through her body, but she seems sober. Which means she drinks quite a lot.
“Show it to whomever you want. No one will believe it’s true. Like I said, people can doctor anything these days.”
She’s so blithe it catches me flat-footed. Where’s her outrage and maternal protectiveness?
“It’ll be enough to open an investigation,” I blurt. “Maybe a good investigator can find a strand of the senator’s hair on Annabelle’s comforter or in her shower drain. They can match the DNA to him and prove the senator was in an intimate place.”
Honey suddenly grows very still. She carefully sets down her drink.
The atmosphere in the room just shifted. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“I’d like to show you something,” Honey says.
She walks to one of the bookshelves and selects a thick, maroon-covered volume at her eye level. It looks like a legal tome. I watch while she opens it.
Something is off; my sixth sense is screaming at me to get out of here.
Then I see it.
It isn’t a thick legal book. It’s a hiding place for the gun now in Honey’s hand. She’s aiming it directly at me.