“Let him go, Krystina” Justine told me when I started to follow Alexander. I looked back at her.

“I can’t just let him go! He’s probably in shock.”

“Yes, which is why you need to give him space to process. Alex has a temper. You’d be better off letting him alone so that he can think.”

I paused at the door when she said that. Alexander did have a temper, but he was usually careful to control it. However, having been on the receiving end of that temper once before caused me to hesitate. I was torn.

I glanced over at Hale, hoping he would give me some sort of guidance. His nose was badly bleeding, a sight that should have kept me rooted to the spot, as it was proof that Alexander wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Yet, I still wanted to chase after him.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said to him. He didn’t respond, but the way his gaze held steadily to mine made me think that he wanted to say something.

“Let’s go to the lounge,” Justine suggested. “Hale, go get cleaned up and then meet Krystina and me there. Maybe if we explain things to her first, she’ll be able to get through to Alexander better than either one of us can.”

Hale nodded and Justine stood. Turning to her mother, she said, “Lena, I’ll be back in a little bit, okay?”

Once Justine seemed satisfied that her mother would be okay, she led me to a quiet lounge area of the nursing home. She refused to speak until Hale joined us. It made me extremely anxious. The more time that lapsed, the more nervous I became. I needed to be with Alexander. I never should have let him go off alone.

When Hale finally entered the lounge a few minutes later, I rounded on Justine.

“I want answers. Now. And make it fast,” I demanded.

Justine flinched from my harsh tone, but to her credit, her voice didn’t waiver when she spoke.

“I’m the one who shot our father,” she announced, like it was some sort of grand statement. I didn’t particularly care who killed him. I was more concerned over the fact that Alexander’s mother was very much alive, something that had been kept from him for over two decades.

“I don’t give a flying shit about that!” I snapped. “Charlie already said as much in an interview to some sleazy reporter. I meant I want answers about your mother. I want to know why you and Hale hid the fact that she was alive.”

“I didn’t know she was until a week ago,” she explained, then darted her eyes in Hale’s direction. “But Hale knew. He never told us because he was honoring a promise he made to my grandfather. Until recently, Hale believed that my mom killed my father. Now that he knows that’s not the case, he had to come out with the truth.”

“I don’t understand,” I stated testily, shaking my head back and forth in confusion.

“With your permission, I can explain, Miss Cole,” Hale said quietly from his corner of the room.

“You don’t need my damn permission, Hale,” I bit out. “Just get it out already so that I can get to Alex.”

“I had just come off a stint in Japan. I was home on leave and decided to visit Lucille, Alexander and Justine’s grandmother. Before I left her house, she asked me to stop over to the Russo’s on my way home and drop off a loaf of banana bread.”

It was strange to hear Hale refer to Alexander’s family as the Russo’s, but I didn’t comment on it. I was too anxious to hear their explanation.

“I still don’t recall you being there that day,” Justine murmured. “I don’t remember the weeks after either. I only remember…”

Justine trailed off, and Hale continued.

“When I got there, I found their father. He had been shot and had quite obviously been laying there for some time.”

“Three days to be exact,” I filled in.

“So Mr. Stone told you then?” he asked.

“Only what he could remember. He said the details were hazy.”

“I bet they were,” he said regretfully. “When I got there, both kids were like zombies. Their eyes were all glazed over, as if they were in an alternate reality.”

“They had been living with a dead body for days, Hale. They had to have been traumatized,” I said, annoyed that I had to point out the obvious.

Hale shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind from the vision of two emotionally distraught children.

“Anyway, I found Helena, their mother, in the kitchen. It was evident from the state of the place that there had been a struggle. Chairs were toppled over. Dishes were broken. But…it was the blood. It was everywhere. The first thing I did was call their grandfather. I don’t know why I didn’t call the police first. Perhaps it was because of the dead man in the living room. I’m not sure. Either way, Helena was alive, but barely. Mr. Stonewall said that ambulances took too long to respond to that area of the city, so he instructed me to take her to the hospital myself. He said he would meet me there.”

“Then what happened?”

“Miss Cole, you have to understand. I didn’t know what Mr. Stonewall’s intentions were when I brought Helena to the hospital. He assumed, as did I, that his daughter shot her husband. Had I known what Mr. Stonewall was planning to do, I may have tried to talk him out of it before everything was set in motion. After all, it would have been easy for Helena to claim self-defense.”

“I’m still not understanding. What did Alex and Justine’s grandfather do?”

“When I arrived at the hospital, Mr. Stonewall was already there. He told the hospital staff that his name was Ethan Stone, not Edward Stonewall. I was surprised by that at first, but then he registered Helena as Lena Silvestri. Lena was her nickname and Silvestri was Lucille’s maiden name,” Hale explained. “He also lied and said she was his wife’s niece. Back then, hospitals didn’t track patients by social security number and records were still all on paper. It was easy to give fake names. I knew what he was doing immediately. He was trying to protect her from a murder rap.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed. “You said it yourself – it would have been easy for her to claim self-defense.”

“I know that, but you didn’t see him that day. He was so distraught. Worried. Furious. I can’t explain it. He asked me a lot of questions about what I saw at the house. He wanted specific details. After I explained what I found there, he told me to go to the house and clean up any evidence of a struggle in the kitchen. He then instructed me to clean up Helena’s blood only and find the gun, but told me not to touch her husband’s body. I didn’t argue with him. That was my mistake. He was obviously grief stricken, not knowing whether or not his daughter would live or die. He wasn’t thinking clearly. I just…” He paused, his voice cracking with emotion. “He was like a father to me. I couldn’t say no to his requests.”

I thought back to what Alexander told me about the gun. I probably shouldn’t voice what I knew to Hale and Justine but, at this point, it didn’t really matter anymore.

“You didn’t find the gun, did you?” I asked.

“No, actually. I didn’t.”

“That’s because Alexander thought that Justine shot their father. She did, but he never knew that for sure. In order to protect her, he threw the gun in the East River.”

Hale shook his head again, but Justine remained silent after my revelation.

“The police came. They conducted their investigation, but with Helena missing and no murder weapon to be found, it went unsolved. If what you say is true, and Alexander threw the gun in the river, that’s the piece of the puzzle I could never find,” Hale said, seeming lost in thought. I shook my head, still trying to piece it all together myself.

“Alright, back to the story,” I said, hoping to get more clarity. “None of this explains why Helena’s whereabouts were kept from Alexander and Justine all these years.”

Justine answered this time.

“My mother pulled through, but the damage to her brain was severe. I read through her medical records. Blunt force trauma, which I assume was the result of one of my father’s drunken episodes. She wasn’t right when she woke up. It was like she was a toddler and had to learn basic things all over again. Even her motor skills were nearly non-existent. After the first year of re-learning basic functionality, she stopped progressing. Now, she has the mind of a four-year-old, trapped in an adult body. She has no memory of me or Alexander at all.”

A loose curl fell free of my ponytail and I hastily pushed it away. What Hale and Justine were saying was hard to process. However, I had a feeling we had just begun to scratch the surface.

“Justine, how do you tie into this?” I asked. “How long have you known it was actually you who killed your father?”

“I recalled what happened a couple of years ago. I was seeing my therapist, still trying to find ways to cope with issues I developed from childhood. However, I didn’t remember a lot of specifics, and it made it hard to find an area of focus. My therapist suggested hypnosis. I wish he hadn’t. There’s a reason I blocked out the memories…” she trailed off and her gaze took on a haunted look.

I recalled Charlie’s interview. In not so many words, he suggested that Justine had been molested. As I stared at her tormented expression, I wondered if it was true and if that’s what she was thinking about. I shuddered. Just the thought of a grown man touching a six-year-old girl was repulsive. Perhaps, in time, I would talk to Justine about it. The project that I wanted to take on at Stone’s Hope to help rape victims might help her cope with her past.

However, I was too angry in that moment to feel any sort of sympathy towards her. Needing to maintain focus, I stood and began to pace the room.

“You’re selfish, Justine. After everything he’s done to protect you. He’s been second guessing every decision he’s made over the years ever since he read Charlie’s interview. How could you keep this from him? You knew he was looking for answers to the murder. Why didn’t you tell Alex as soon as you remembered?”

“Why would I? You didn’t know Alex back then,” she said and began to sob. “He was obsessed with finding our mother for years. He had finally seemed to let it go around the time I realized I was the one who killed our father. Why would I dredge up a past that both Alex and I wanted to forget?”

I lifted my arms in exasperation.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if you did, Alex wouldn’t be dealing with Mac Owens right now. Or Charlie. Or any of it!” I exclaimed. My voice was growing louder by the minute. “He would have had answers! Did you know he planned to go to the DA on Monday? Can you imagine what could have happened if he did?”

“Nothing would have happened,” Justine stated flatly. “Alex only had pieces of information. Most of his knowledge was circumstantial. The minute Hale told me about the article, I gave Hale the truth about what I did. I may have only been six years old, but I couldn’t hide from it anymore. Once Hale found out it was me that shot my father, there was no need to keep my mother hidden. That’s when he told me she was alive. Together, we decided to talk to the DA. We went last week Monday.”

I stopped pacing and looked at Hale in surprise.

“Monday?” I asked him.

“Yes,” Hale confirmed. “That’s why I was really there that day, Miss Cole. I was meeting Justine. Running into you at the DA’s office was a strange coincidence. I didn’t track your phone. Samuel did tell me that you went to a doctor appointment, but he had nothing to do with me finding you there. And, if you recall, I also told you that day to trust me. I said I was handling it.”

“Handling it? You should have told Alex about his mother years ago,” I said, my tone sounding more accusatory than I meant it to be.

“I know I should have,” Hale admitted sadly. “My only defense is that I made a promise to Mr. and Mrs. Stonewall. They wanted their grandchildren to move on from the horrors of their past. They wanted them to be happy, living full and successful lives, just as Helena always dreamed they would have. They were heartbroken, but since they couldn’t have their daughter, they were willing to sacrifice everything to make her wishes come true. I’ve never seen such devotion. Because of that, I vowed to watch over Helena and keep their secret safe, even if it meant never telling the truth to her children.”

I shook my head, feeling like I was living a soap opera. It was all so surreal.

“I don’t know what to think about any of this. I only know that I have to get to Alex to make sure he’s okay. He will be okay, right Hale? I mean, he’s not at fault for anything.”

“Alex will be fine,” Justine assured. “There are still some things to sort out. Thomas Green said that there isn’t a case against me or Alex. However, we know there will be a lot of follow up questions for Hale. We don’t know what will happen, but there will be an investigation. Hale understands his role in all of it and the possible consequences.”

I didn’t want to think about the amount of trouble Hale might be in. I didn’t like the fact that he kept Alexander’s mother hidden for all of these years, but I understood it. He was only trying to protect the ones he loved. I could only hope that the justice system would show some leniency.

“Hale, I’m assuming Alex left with the car. I need to get back to the penthouse. Can you drive me?”

“Of course, Miss Cole.”

“Justine, don’t disappear again. When I talk to Alex, I’ll try to explain everything the best that I can, but he’s bound to have questions that I didn’t think to ask. If he does, you better be around to answer them.”

“I will. I promise. And Krystina, please be careful,” she warned.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what frame of mind Alex is in right now. I don’t want him to push you away, or worse. Be careful with him. You might be the only one who has a shot at helping him through this.”