Chapter 6 - THE HOUSE OF LIES
We returned to the Whitmore townhouse after midnight.
For seventeen years, it had been my home.
That night, it felt like a crime scene.
Every photograph on the walls suddenly seemed dishonest.
Our wedding.
Ethan’s first birthday.
Christmas mornings.
Richard smiling beside me.
How many times had he looked at our son and remembered the other baby he had abandoned?
Noah refused the guest bedroom.
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You can have any room you want,” I said.
“I don’t want anything from this house.”
Richard winced.
Noah noticed.
Good.
Ethan sat beside his brother.
“You can take my room.”
Noah gave him a strange look.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve been sleeping outside.”
Noah stared at him.
Then he nodded once.
“Thanks.”
That one small exchange destroyed me more than all the shouting.
They should have grown up together.
They should have fought over toys.
Shared birthday cakes.
Driven me crazy.
Instead, one had private schools and piano lessons.
The other learned which subway stations were warm enough to survive January.
At 2:13 a.m., I found Richard in his office drinking whiskey.
I took the glass from his hand and poured it into the sink.
“You don’t get to numb this.”
He looked exhausted.
“I was twenty-eight.”
“So?”
“My father controlled everything.”
“So?”
“He told me Noah would be safe.”
“You watched them remove my newborn son.”
Richard closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You watched.”
“Yes.”
“And when I woke up?”
His voice cracked.
“I told you the doctors had worried there might be twins early in the pregnancy but only one developed.”
I remembered.
God.
I actually remembered him telling me that.
I had been drugged.
Weak.
Grieving complications I didn’t understand.
And I trusted him.
“You held my hand while you lied.”
“I know.”
I slapped his desk.
“You don’t know anything!”
He stood.
“I have hated myself every day.”
“You had fourteen years to fix it.”
“My father told me the adoption was sealed.”
“You’re rich, Richard.”
“I know.”
“You own half the buildings in Midtown. Don’t tell me you couldn’t find one child.”
He looked at me.
And there it was.
The ugliest truth.
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“If I found him, I would lose you.”
I stared at him.
“You were right.”
His face crumpled.
I turned to leave.
Then Richard said, “There’s something else.”
I stopped.
“My father called tonight.”
I turned slowly.
“He knows Noah is here.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Richard’s phone buzzed.
A text.
He read it.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He handed me the phone.
One sentence.
BRING BOTH BOYS TO ME TOMORROW OR CLAIRE LEARNS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THE NIGHT HER MOTHER DIED.
My blood went cold.
“My mother died in a hospital.”
Richard looked at me.
May you like
“So we were told.”
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