Page 91 of What Goes Around

The image burned itself into my mind: my beautiful young mother, heart splitting open in a waiting room.

“Our sister was… destroyed. She made him move out that same night. She told us she was thinking of selling the house, our family’s wedding gift to her, and moving back to France with you.”

“One week later,” Étienne said, “she was dead.”

Silence hung between us for a long, heavy moment.

“When we flew in for the funeral,” Marc continued, “it was chaos. People were whispering. Accusing. Brandon looked like a wreck. There was a fight. He was furious that anyone suspected him. He told us that if we kept accusing him, he would cut contact and make sure you never heard of us again.”

I looked down at my hands.

“He said Ines was the love of his life,” Marc went on. “That he would never harm her. And… he seemed devastated. Truly devastated.”

“But,” Étienne murmured, “we couldn’t reconcile the heartbroken man at the funeral with the man who cheated on our sister. And we realized… we did not know him at all.”

I said nothing.

“He sold the marital home,” Marc said. “Took the life insurance money. Took you. Vanished.”

“One million dollars,” Étienne added quietly.

My breath stilled.

“We did a little digging before coming to the States,” Marc said, “ with that money he founded his company.”

“In the early 2000s,” Marc said, “without social media or digital records… it was easy to vanish.”

“Harder to chase,” Étienne added. “We hired investigators for years. Nothing.”

And then came the part they could never have guessed.

“He didn’t run away alone,” I said quietly. “He ran straight to the secretary. He married her.”

They stared at me, horrified.

“And I grew up believing she was my mother.”

Both men paled.

When I explained that my DNA results showed a direct genetic match to Marissa, enough to indicate she was likely my half-aunt rather than merely a stepmother, their chairs scraped back across the floor.

“Impossible,” Marc breathed.

“No… how…?” Étienne murmured.

But the DNA didn’t lie.

When they flew back to France, they promised to investigate.

“We will find the truth,” they said. “Your mother deserves that. And so do you.”

A week later I received an email from them. The message arrived late, well past midnight in France.

The subject line was simple: Information Concerning Marissa Richards

Ma chère Ashley,

We hope you are well.