CHAPTER SIXTY

I went in to work with Gabriel. I didn’t have an official shift, but I’d sent out some feelers, building those victim profiles for my parents’ case, and I hoped one of them might have paid off in the form of a possible interview. Calls would come to Lydia. I didn’t even get a chance to ask her about them. As soon as we walked in, she stood, motioning that she needed to speak to me. Gabriel continued on to his office.

Once the door closed behind him, Lydia picked up an envelope off her desk. “This came for you.”

It was a letter-sized white envelope. On the front, it read OLIVIA TAYLOR-JONES in careful block letters. As soon as I saw those letters, I went still. I saw that handwriting, and I flashed to a Christmas gift label. My name on it, in the same printed letters. TO EDEN. LOVE DADDY.

“Todd,” I whispered.

My gaze shot to the return address on the back, which confirmed it. Lydia caught my elbow, and I realized it was shaking. She nodded toward the meeting room door. I let her usher me inside. I made my way blindly to the table, dropped the letter on it, and sat there staring at it.

“I could call Gabriel in, if you’d like,” she said. When I shook my head vehemently, she said, “That’s what I thought. Not exactly Mr. Empathy. He means well . . .” She trailed off, then checked that the door was closed before sitting beside me.

“Todd’s probably telling me why he won’t see me,” I said, indicating the envelope. “He doesn’t think it’s wise. Or he just doesn’t want to, after all these years.”

I thought of what Gabriel had said, that Todd had kept looking for me long after Pamela had given up. Now that I’d turned up, had he realized he wasn’t going to get that fantasy reunion with his little girl? That I wasn’t his little girl anymore, but a grown woman, a stranger?

I remembered going to a state fair with my adoptive dad when I was eight. It was magical—all bright lights and whirling rides and delicious treats. I’d returned at eighteen and wished I hadn’t—the lights had been garish, the rides dilapidated, the treats seeming to guarantee food poisoning. Memories forever tainted. Is that what Todd feared?

“That might not be why he’s writing,” Lydia said.

I nodded and dropped the envelope, unopened, into my bag. “I’ll read it later.”

“If you want to talk about it . . .”

I smiled wanly. “Thanks. I might take you up on that. Not a lot . . .” I trailed off. Not a lot of people I can talk to about it these days. That sounded sad. Pathetic, even. The truth was that I’d never had a lot of people I could unload on. I was the shoulder to cry on. I’d never needed that myself, because I’d always had it, with my dad. Then he was gone, and . . .

And no one was there to replace him, and maybe I was looking for that in Todd. Which was the worst possible thing I could do. Not because he was a convicted serial killer, but because it wasn’t fair to Todd. Expecting him to take the role of my beloved dad would be like him expecting me to take that of his two-year-old daughter.

“I’ll let you know what it says tomorrow,” I said. “If he doesn’t want to see me, you can stop trying.”

“If you want to talk before that . . .”

I smiled at her, more genuine now. “Thanks.”

—

With the arrival of that letter, my enthusiasm for work soured. There were no calls on my leads, and I wasn’t sure I’d have set up an interview even if I could. I finished what I could do, and at eleven I was rapping on Gabriel’s office door.

“Come in,” he called.

He was at his desk, surrounded by papers.

“I’m taking off.”

He looked up, as if startled, and checked his watch.

“I wasn’t scheduled to work today,” I said. “If you need me to do something, I’m happy to stay another hour or so, but otherwise I wouldn’t mind getting home and grabbing a nap before my diner shift.”

“Yes, of course.”

I turned to leave.

“Olivia?”

When I looked back, he waved me in. I closed the door and he said, “Have you given any more thought to quitting the diner?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be considering it.”

“I’d like you to. Yes, you don’t want to depend on me for your income, but your trust fund comes due in a few months. Your expenses are low. I suspect that, in a crunch, you would be fine until then.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “You also mentioned applying for your private investigator license.”

I made a face. “I was just talking. I’ll get it if this works out, but I’m not in any rush. The real issue is those few months until my trust fund. I’d rather keep my job at the diner. It’s not interfering, is it?”

He hesitated.

“You don’t want me working at the diner,” I said. “Why?”

“Because it puts you at their mercy and under their watch.”

“The elders, you mean.”

“Yes. I know they don’t pay your wages, but I’ve seen the way Larry treats them. If they wished you gone, he’d do it. Of course, that would leave you no worse off than if you quit, but . . . The balance of power makes me uneasy.”

I wasn’t eager to quit the diner. It felt like saying two months as a server was as much “real-person life” as this former socialite could bear.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Do you want me to check in later—?”

His phone rang, Lydia patching in a call. He glanced at it.

“Take that,” I said. “Just call me later if—”

“Hold on.”

He answered. It was a short call. His end was just “Yes” and “No” and “Are you certain?” and “Please send the results to my office.”

“That was the laboratory,” he said.

“With the results already?”

“I put a rush on them.”

Which would have cost extra. Another time, I’d have joked about him docking it from my wages, but now that seemed uncharitable.

“Your theory was correct,” he said. “Macy and Ciara were, indeed, switched at birth.”