For over an hour, she didn’t move from her seat at the computer except to lock the doors and check the windows.
What had happened to her world? She was dazed by changes she could not yet grasp. In the space of a couple of hours, she’d lost the family she’d always known and the man she’d long planned to marry. She stared at the picture of Genevieve Russell, who looked so alive and happy. How could her mother have let this beautiful woman die the way she did? It was tantamount to murder. Why didn’t she get her help?
She felt sick as she waited for the doorbell to ring, when she would come face-to-face with the woman responsible for her real mother’s death. The woman who had raised her in suffocating protection and who had lied to her over and over again.
She heard the slamming of car doors in her driveway. In the living room, she unlocked the door and pulled it open. Turning her back on her parents, she walked over to the love seat and sat down, arms folded across her chest like armor, firmly in place.
Her mother limped into the room, her father’s hand on her back. Her eyes were puffy and red, her dark hair pulled back from her face in a scrunchie. She seemed to know better than to try to hug Corinne. Instead, she stood in the middle of the room, holding her arms at her sides with an air of defeat. “Cory,” she said, “I’m so sorry, honey.”
Corinne shut her eyes.
“Sit down, Eve.” Her father guided her mother to the sofa. He was being so protective of her. He didn’t sit next to her, though, choosing instead to take a seat near the fireplace.
“What exactly are you sorry for, Mother?” Corinne glared at her. “For lying to me all these years? Lying to me my whole life? Are you sorry for destroying the family I was born into? For killing my mother? Are you sorry for stealing me from my father and sister? Are you sorry for—”
“That’s enough, Cory,” her father said. “That doesn’t help.”
Her mother was crying, tears flowing freely. She leaned forward as if she wanted to get as close to Corinne as she could. “I’m sorry for hurting you in any way,” her mother said. “I loved you from the start. I’ve always loved you.”
“You loved me, so you stole me, you selfish bitch.” She choked on the word.
“Cory, stop it,” her father said.
“It wasn’t that simple,” her mother said. “But I’m not here to make excuses for my behavior. It was inexcusable. I’m just here to tell you how much I love you and how sorry I am for hurting you.”
Corinne couldn’t look at her. If she looked at her, she might see her paleness, the circles around her eyes, the swollen wrists. She didn’t want to feel any sympathy for her, so she rested her head on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling instead.
“So explain,” she said. “You said you waited at that cabin while those guys kidnapped my mother. What was she like when she got there?” She braced herself for the answer. How horrible to have to learn about Genevieve from the woman responsible for her death!
Her mother hesitated. “She was more angry than afraid,” she said. “Maybe if she’d been the one to raise you, you wouldn’t have had the fears you do, because she was a very strong and feisty woman. And beautiful, Cory. The kind of beauty that could sweep you away. Like your beauty. You look so much like her.”
She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction of her tears. “More,” she said as she lowered her head to look at her. “Tell me more.”
Her mother told her everything about that terrible night in the cabin—how Genevieve directed her to prepare for the birth and how, as Corinne came to life, Genevieve faded away. She told her about wrapping her in a blanket and running away with her.
“I was so afraid,” her mother said. “I fell in love with you, but I knew I needed to get you to your father. I tried to do that. I was going to put you inside a police car in front of the governor’s mansion, but when I started to open the car door, an alarm went off. So I took off with you. I was terrified the police would come after—”
“It makes me sick.” Corinne looked her in the eye.
“What does?” Eve asked.
“You keep talking about what was happening to you. What you felt like. It was all about you, wasn’t it? All about you.”
“Actually, no,” her mother said. “I was very concerned about you. About what I’d done to you. I didn’t know what else to do other than keep you and love you and take care of you.”
“You told me my father was killed in a motorcycle accident.”
“I didn’t know what else to—”
“You didn’t know. You didn’t know. If you say that one more time, I’m going to scream.” She sat forward. “You did too know what you should do. You should have gone to the police and told them the truth so they could take me to my father. My real father.” She kept her eyes on her mother, not daring to look at Jack at that moment. He was an innocent bystander in all of this. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she was too angry to censor her words. “That’s what you should have done,” she said, “and even at the tender age of sixteen, you knew that, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” her mother whispered. “I knew that.”
“How could you let my mother die like that?”
Her father sat forward. “Cory, what do you want her to say?”
“How do you feel, Dad, knowing she’s lied to you all these years?” She asked the question of her father, yet she felt the betrayal in her own heart. Ken’s lies rang in her ears. Had anyone ever been honest with her?
“It feels like crap,” her father said. “I’m still struggling to understand all of this myself. But I love…your mother. We’ve both worked hard to give you and Dru a loving family. She’s not the girl she was back then, Cor—”
He suddenly turned his head at the sound of car doors slamming outside. Leaning back, he peered out the window, then closed his eyes. “Damn,” he said quietly.
“Who is it?” Corinne got to her feet and looked through the window into the darkness. A police car was in the driveway behind Dru’s car. Another stood in the street. Three uniformed officers were walking to her front door.
“The police are here.” She looked at her mother, who only nodded, unsurprised.
Corinne pulled open the door before the three men had a chance to ring the bell.
“Are you Corinne Elliott?” one of them asked.
She nodded.
“Is Eve Elliott here?”
“Yes.” She stood away from the door to let them enter.
They walked in, as her mother rose unsteadily to her feet, leaning on her father’s arm once again.
“Eve Elliott?” one of the officers queried.
“Yes,” her mother whispered.
“You’re under arrest for the kidnapping of Genevieve Russell and baby girl Russell, false identification, conspiracy, tampering with public records…”
Corinne listened as the officer read a laundry list of her mother’s many crimes, all the while thinking, Who is baby girl Russell? It took her a moment to realize he was talking about her. Her skin prickled. She was two people. Who would baby girl Russell have grown up to be? She felt the room blacking out from the edges and gripped the arm of the sofa to keep herself upright.
“Don’t handcuff her.” Her father grabbed one of the officer’s wrists as he started to put handcuffs on her mother, but he quickly let go. “Please,” he said. “Her wrists are painful.”
“It’s all right, Jack,” her mother said. She submitted easily, barely seeming to notice the cuffs on her wrists. Her eyes were on Corinne, who liked seeing her treated like the criminal she was. She wanted her mother to share some of the pain she felt.
“I’ll follow you in Dru’s car,” her father said to her mother. He was so solicitous of her. So understanding. He’d always been such a wimp.
She watched them head down the sidewalk toward the police car. From the rear, her mother’s faltering gait was pronounced. It was always worse when she was walking with someone else, as she was with the officers, trying her best to keep up with them. For just a moment, Corinne wanted to call out to the police, Don’t make her walk so fast! The muscles in her chest contracted as she watched the only mother she’d ever known limp down the front walk and away from her.