Chapter 9

It was for a child everyone said wasn't even his.

Xavier finished playing the last note, turned around, and saw me standing in the doorway. He gave me that perfect, well-behaved smile.

"Mom, you're back," he said.

When he called me "Mom," the word felt weightless, drifting through the air like a scrap of paper.

I walked over and ruffled his hair.

"You played really well. Want to play something at the birthday party?" I asked.

Xavier's eyes lit up, and he looked over at Jacob.

Jacob put his phone away, slung an arm around Xavier's shoulders, and grinned.

"Of course. Rebecca, look at Xavier. He's got real talent. When Zoe gets back, Xavier can teach her how to play," Jacob said.

I nodded and headed upstairs.

As soon as I closed my bedroom door, I pulled out my phone and opened Maria's chat.

I typed: [Send me Elsa's exact address in Harborvale. I need to meet her.]

Maria replied with three question marks: [You're going yourself?]

I replied: [No, I'm going to invite her. It lines up perfectly with Xavier's birthday party. I'm sure no mother would skip her son's tenth birthday.]

After sending the message, I wiped the chat.

From that day on, I spent my days preparing for the birthday party, and my nights digging into the other thread.

Jacob saw me acting like nothing had changed, maybe even more obedient than before, and started to relax around me.

He started coming home late.

Sometimes he'd stumble in at one or two in the morning, saying he had work events. Other times, he'd disappear all weekend, claiming he was visiting old army buddies.

I never bothered to ask.

The more he let his guard down, the safer I felt.

On the seventh night before the birthday party, I waited until Jacob left, Lucy went upstairs to rest, and Xavier turned off his lights and went to bed. Then I drove to Harborvale by myself.

It was three hours on the road.

By the time I rolled into town, it was one in the morning.

Maria had sent me the address: ninth floor, upscale apartment building on Riverside Road, Harborvale.

I didn't go up.

I parked across the street from the building and waited. At 7:08 a.m.; my target finally showed up.

Elsa walked out the front door in a camel-colored cardigan, holding a bag of trash.

Her hair was tied in a low ponytail, bare-faced, but her skin looked flawless.

After tossing the trash, she didn't go right back inside. Instead, she took a seat on a bench in the garden, pulled out her phone, and made a call.

I was too far away to catch what she was saying.

But I could read her face, catching every shift in her mood.

She was smiling, looking down and absentmindedly drawing circles with her toes, just like a girl flirting on the phone, all playful and sweet.

The call went on for about ten minutes.

After she hung up, she checked something on her phone for a while, then got up and headed back inside.

I didn't follow her.

I sat in my car for another two hours.

At 9:30 a.m., a delivery truck pulled up at the entrance. The delivery guy hauled out two big boxes, and the name on the delivery slip was "Mrs. Scott."

She was still using her late husband's first name.

A woman everyone thought had died three years ago was still signing for packages as Mrs. Scott.

I snapped a photo.

Then I started the engine and drove off.

While I was on the highway, Maria called.

Maria said, "I found something. In Elsa's call logs over the past three years, she's called that Harborvale number more than four hundred times.

"But there's another number that pops up a lot too, about three or four times a week."

"Who's the number registered to?" I asked.

Maria went quiet for a couple seconds.

"Lucy," she said.

I eased my foot onto the brake, slowing the car down.

Lucy was my mother-in-law, Jacob's mother.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I triple-checked. That's the only number registered to your mother-in-law. She doesn't have a second one. Elsa calls her three or four times a week, each call lasts between twenty and forty minutes. The most recent call was five days ago," Maria said.

I hung up and pulled into the highway rest stop parking lot.

I sat in the car for a long time, just thinking.

Lucy knew Elsa was alive.

That meant Lucy probably knew exactly who Xavier really was.

She wasn't just some clueless old lady; she was part of the whole cover-up.

I took a deep breath and rested my hands on the steering wheel.

I pictured Lucy sitting at the head of the living room, leaning on her cane, stroking Xavier's hair and saying, "This kid's so much more thoughtful than Zoe."

She knew who Xavier really was.

She'd known all along.

She didn't even blink when her own granddaughter was sent off to the countryside to suffer.

Because in her heart, Xavier was the only grandson she cared about.

And Zoe? She was just an inconvenience.