Young Truths (Young Series) (38 page)

We arrive in a small waiting room and find Danny waiting for us. He takes care of checking us in, telling us to sit. After a minute or so, he joins us.

“So here’s how this is going to go,” he says, his tone business-like and professional. “Tom Saunders and his lawyer are here. Currently, they’re in an examination room where a nurse is preparing to extract his blood for the test. In order for the test to be valid, I have to witness them taking his b
lood—otherwise we could claim he’s switched the samples. The same will go for when the three of you are tested: Tom’s lawyer will be present as witness.”

“Why does Samantha need to be tested?” Matthew asks sharply.

“As the mother, she has contributed to half of Olivia’s DNA and if she doesn’t give a sample, the test could come back inconclusive and this will all be drawn out even more.”

Matthew nods, turning his gaze to our daughter. Danny stands and excuses himself, heading through the door that leads to the examination rooms. The moment the door closes behind him, I bite my lip in an attempt to stave off my nerves. I don’t think I ever considered the possibility that Tom would be here today, though one look at his face tells me my husband made no such oversight. The surprising thing is how calm he looks right now knowing the man who is challenging his family is just down the hall. I would have expected him to be angry and twitchy, tempted to rush into the examination room and beat Tom to a pulp, but his face is positively serene as he smiles back at our smiling daughter. She’s looking up at him with bright green eyes that match his exactly like she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man holding onto her is her father. Matthew’s eyes dart towards me and his smile falters slightly as he sighs.

“Everything is going to be fine,” he whispers, tugging my chin until I free my lip from my teeth. “I promise.”

I nod, unable to answer. I want to believe him, but there is a very tiny, nearly miniscule part of me that thinks Tom might be my daughter’s father and though it wouldn’t change anything for Matthew, I fear the guilt will eat away at me to the point I’ll do something stupid. Like run
away again. But I could never do that to Matthew. Like him, I’m too selfish to even consider living out the rest of my life without him.

Fifteen minutes pass before the door opens again. If I wasn’t so nervous about this, I’d be mortified to recognize Tom’s lawyer as my former boss when I was an office manager back in Omaha, John DeSilva. He nods tersely in greeting to me, causing Matthew to look between us questioningly. I hate Tom a little right now for bringing John into this, probably to make me feel even more uncomfortable than I already am. Tom walks out behind him and he stops suddenly, his gaze locking on Olivia. Emotions ranging from hope to sadness to anger pass through his eyes and I know he’s decided in his mind she is his daughter. I can only imagine the devastation he’ll feel when he finds out she isn’t.

I blink rapidly, realizing this is the first time since receiving that letter that I’ve believed with absolute certainty that Tom isn’t Olivia’s father. And with that realization, I find I can actually look directly at my former best friend without wavering. As though he feels my stare, Tom looks at me and his eyes widen at whatever it is he sees, then he immediately averts his gaze almost like he’s ashamed of himself for all of this.

“Samantha. Matthew.” We look up to find Danny standing beside a nurse, gesturing for us to follow. John has a brief conversation with Tom who is looking at Olivia again. Luckily, he doesn’t follow us; I’m not sure I could stand being in a small room with him.

The nurse holds open a door and we enter. I’m instructed first to hop up on the examination table and roll up my shirt sleeve. Matthew and Olivia stand right beside me, my husband holding our daughter with one arm while he takes my free hand in his. I don’t even flinch as the needle is inserted in my arm and the blood is drawn. In a matter of seconds, it’s over and I’m sliding off the table to switch places with Matthew. I almost expect him to hand Olivia off to me, but he doesn’t and he looks defiantly around at the rest of us as though expecting someone to try and take her from him. I smirk when no one is brave enough to attempt it, though the nurse hesitates; I imagine it’s not normal for someone to be holding a baby while they are getting blood drawn, but she doesn’t say anything about it.

Matthew smiles the entire time the nurse draws his blood like he’s got his very own secret from the entire world. He’s confident about how this situation will play out and when he meets my gaze, his confidence becomes mine. Nothing can touch us right now, let alone the belief that Olivia might be somebody else’s daughter. I want to hold onto whatever this moment is for the rest of our lives.

When it’s Olivia’s turn, I tense once again, knowing exactly how small babies react to needles. I start to take her from Matthew, but he shakes his head minutely, silently assuring me Olivia will be perfectly fine. She starts to fuss when the nurse begins the test and Matthew bends his head to press his lips against her forehead, holding her eyes with his own. To my surprise, Olivia calms immediately and doesn’t make another sound while her blood is taken.

“See? Easy,” Matthew says, grinning at me. His grin falters when he notices my watery eyes. “What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say, smiling. I’m not sure how to explain my feelings about what I just witnessed—a father calming his child with a touch and a held gaze. Nobody else would have been able to pull that off, not me and certainly not Tom. I turn to Danny and John. “Are we done?”

We all sign paperwork and the nurse tells us the results should be ready in a week’s time. With that, we’re free to go and it doesn’t even faze me when we return to the waiting room and find Tom pacing. He turns towards us, opening his mouth to speak to me, but Matthew steps in front of me, effectively blocking my view of Tom.

“Stay away from us,” he says in a low voice before the lawyers arrive. “Leave my wife and my son and
my daughter
alone, or you will regret it.”

I half-expect a fight to break out, but Tom seems to be speechless. He looks to me like he’s expecting me to say something different; I don’t. For once, Matthew and I are on the exact same page when it comes to Tom Saunders. This is unforgivable and there will be no reconciliation of our friendship. Danny joins us, stepping between Matthew and Tom, instructing us to step out of the room. He throws my husband a warnin
g glance that is dismissed with a shrug.

Out in the hospital corridor, Matthew turns to me, his smile in place again. “Let’s go home,” he says softly.

As much as I’d hoped that my family and I could enjoy a bit of peace and quiet after the paternity testing, by now I really ought to know the world tends to have other plans for us. Two days after the tests, Marcus calls to remind me we need to finish our discussion from a week ago and he seems insistent that it can’t wait any longer. He’s waiting for me in my office when I arrive for the day and I’m not sure I like the look on his face. I don’t remember ever seeing look so... grim.

“You’re going to want to sit down for this,” he instructs quietly. Reluctantly, I do. “I won’t bother beating around the bush with this one; no matter how I say it, you’re not going to react well. So we’ll start with the fingerprints. As I’ve already told you, the prints found at Lucy’s apartment aren’t yours. There was an admin mix-up at the police station and your file was mistaken for your father’s. Apparently he was arrested a few years back for a DUI—”

“Wait,” I say, leaning forward in surprise. “The fingerprints found at Lucy’s apartment—they belong to my father?”

Marcus nods. “That’s what I said.”

“So my father was at Lucy’s apartment,” I say slowly, fully aware that I’m repeating the information I was just given. “How fresh did you say those fingerprints were?”

Hesitating, Marcus opens the folder in his lap, though there is no doubt in my mind that he knows the details of this case like the back of his hand. “We believe the freshest prints were a couple days old at the time of Lucy’s death,” he informs me. My heart falls into my stomach at the implications. “We’re not insinuating that your father is a suspect in her murder—in fact, he’s got an airtight alibi for that day. Same as yours, actually; hospital, while Samantha was giving birth.”

“Why else would he be there?” I ask tonelessly, hating the way my thoughts are headed.

Marcus raises one eyebrow, an expression that is at once sympathetic and asks how much of a moron I really am. He sighs. “Lucy’s neighbors put him at the apartment several times over the last few months, usually in the evening time. A few people have suggested he didn’t leave until the very early hours of the morning.”

It takes me a minute to really understand those words and when my mind fully registers them, I think I might be sick. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I say just as tonelessly as before.

“Believe me, I sincerely wish I was,” he replies. He hands me a stack of photographs, all of which depict my father and Lucy in what could politely be called compromising positions. I drop the photos on the coffee table in front of me when I see the two of them standing on a balcony, their arms wrapped around each other, and their tongues rammed down each other’s throats. I am in severe need of an eye-scrubbing and brain bleach.

“How the hell did
you get these?” I ask in a tone of wonder and disgust.

“That’s the interesting thing,” Marcus says, stuffing the photos back into the folder. “They were in Lucy’s apartment, scattered around the floor. Whoever went after Lucy, she struggled; the apartment looked like a tornado went through it. Maybe they were blackmail? Someone sent them to her threatening to release the photos and expose an affair with your father?”

I flinch at the word affair, despite having already come to that same conclusion. “Why, though?” I ask. “What would Lucy have that anyone would want to blackmail her for?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Could be related to her work with your father, could be completely unrelated. Only way we’ll know for sure is if we ask your father.”

“Oh yeah,” I say with false brightness. “That’ll be fun! ‘Hey, Dad, good to see you. How’s Mom? Oh, by the way, when you were fucking my college girlfriend, did she happen to mention anything that might be used against her as blackmail?’”

He smirks. “I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that, but
I think that’s the general gist of what we want to breach.”

I don’t quite share his amusement
of the situation. Once I manage to accept the fact that my father had an affair with Lucy for who knows how long, I’m hit with the fact that my father cheated on my mother. Paul has always been a lot of things, but I never thought he’d pull something like this. My parents’ marriage isn’t perfect—far from it—but I’d always believed my father loved my mother in his own way. I only hope she isn’t aware of it; this would break her heart on top of everything else. “Is it wrong that I hope my father dies before my mother gets word of this?” I ask Marcus in a low voice, staring down at my feet.

“Some people might think so,” he answers. “But if I was in your position, I’d hope for the same thing. I’d want my mom to spend whatever time she had left with her husband to be as happy as they could be. I get it, Matt.”

I nod, not entirely convinced, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Part of me wishes I could erase the last several minutes from my memory and have the same oblivious time with my father as I’m determined for my mother to have. And I’m getting angry at Paul now. Angry that he’s tarnished what little amount of good memories I have of him. Angry that the last few months when he was trying so hard to atone for the wrongs he’s dealt me and Samantha over the years seem to be nothing but a lie now. He was only acting apologetic and like the doting father and grandfather because he was given a rough expiration date when he was diagnosed with cancer. Is that all it was? An act so he could die with a clear conscience?

Standing suddenly, I startle Marcus as I reach for my jacket and car keys. “Where are you going?” Marc
us asks sharply as I leave my office.

“Out,” I respond shortly.

Cursing, Marcus jumps to his feet as well. “Matt, this isn’t a good idea,” he informs me, following me out the door.

“No one invited you, West,” I snap coldly over my shoulder. “You don’t have to babysit me.”

“Apparently, I do! I’ve got enough to deal with without adding you in jail for your father’s murder,” he says matter-of-factly. “So yeah, I’m tagging along on this field trip. Don’t like it, don’t go. End of story.”

Gritting my teeth, I know I won’t be rid of Marcus since he’s worked out where I’m going and I surprisingly find I don’t care.

“So where’s my favorite niece?”

I look up as the door to the bookstore opens and Claire enters. “Hello to you, too,” I respond dryly.

Snorting a laugh, she ignores my tone. “Place looks good, Sammy,” she praises, looking around.

“It looks exactly as it looked when Bonnie ran it,” I reply.

“Does it?” she asks cluelessly, leaning on the counter. “Either way, you never answered my question.”

“You just asked your question,” I remind her. “Olivia is with your mom, actually. Diane called over the weekend and complained that she hadn’t been seeing the kids enough, so she volunteered to keep an eye on the baby while Matt and I work.”