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Brooks looked at him thoughtfully. “If he went to all that trouble when she was pregnant the first time, why would he fire her when she was pregnant with you? It seems inconsistent.”
Carson shook his head. “I don’t know why. But I think it all goes back to the letter I found in the shoe box. It sounds to me like it might not have been Sutton’s decision to let her go.”
“Well,” Graham said, “he was married at the time. Do you think his wife found out about his family on the side and made him put an end to all of it?”
Brooks chuckled. “Have you met Celeste Van Houten? She’s one icy-cold woman. I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“We need proof,” Graham argued and ran his fingers through his blond hair. “If we want to know the truth, once and for all, we’ll need a paternity test. I doubt the old man will just go along with it to be nice, especially when it would mean we’d be eligible for a chunk of that multimillion-dollar estate of his when he dies. There’s no way I can compel a paternity test just on the basis of our mother having been his employee at the time of Carson’s conception. We need something that shows they actually had an affair.”
“Who would know aside from the two of them?” Brooks asked.
“That’s a tough one. Sutton wasn’t likely to broadcast what he was doing, even though it looks obvious to us.”
“Someone would have to know,” Carson insisted. “Maybe someone who worked for Sutton at the time at his office or his house.”
“That’s someplace we can start,” Graham agreed. “I’ll do some more digging and see what I can find. Maybe we’ll luck out and find someone who still remembers that far back. It’s been thirty years.”
Carson knew Graham was trying to be upbeat, but he could hear the discouragement in his voice. The odds of finding someone who knew about their mother’s relationship were pretty low. Most of Sutton’s employees were probably paid handsomely to keep their mouths shut. But if anyone could track them down, Graham could.
“It’s more than we knew a week ago,” Brooks said.
“That’s true,” Carson agreed. “I just wonder what the point of it would be.”
“What do you mean?” Graham asked.
“Well, we take the paternity test and we find out he’s our father. Then what? I don’t see this ending well.”
“It won’t, at least not for Sutton,” Brooks said. “We’re going to make him pay for what he did to our mother and to us.”
“How?” Carson asked. “The man has no conscience.”
“That’s true,” Brooks agreed. “But he does have a multimillion-dollar estate and we would be rightful heirs to it as well as his three legitimate daughters with Celeste. We go in and demand our share as his penance. I don’t care if we blow it all in a year, as long as we pry it from his cold, dead hands.”
“Wouldn’t most of the estate go to his wife?”
Graham shook his head. “Celeste is his ex-wife now and has been for a couple years. Her lawyers have already seized her share. The rest of his estate most likely goes to his daughters. No matter what, Sutton can change the will to include us if he wants to. We just have to give him a little encouragement.”
Carson tried not to frown. It all made sense. Sutton deserved it. He just didn’t like it. “Okay,” he said. “We find a way to push for a test, then go after the estate. There’s just one downside to all of this.”
“What’s that?”
“If we’re right, it means that Sutton Winchester is our father. Mom warned us up one side and down the other to stay away from our father. She said he was dangerous and we were far better off without him in our lives. I always thought that maybe she had exaggerated and that when we met him, we’d find he was a better man that we expected. But if it is Sutton... I worry that our worst fears about our father are about to come true.”
* * *
“Georgia?”
Georgia looked up from her barely touched dinner and found Carson looking at her with concern. She was lost in her thoughts and he’d caught her not listening.
After fantasizing about time alone with Carson for so long, she was letting it slip through her fingers. Tonight he’d insisted on taking her out to dinner someplace nice. He was wearing her favorite navy pinstripe suit. For some reason, that color against his tan skin made his green eyes pop. He was looking so handsome and yet she could barely focus on a word he said.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay? You seem...distracted tonight. Are you having second thoughts about the two of us being seen together publicly?”
Georgia shook her head. She had a lot on her mind, but surprisingly, the budding romance between her and Carson was not one of her worries. “No, no. I’m sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind tonight.”
Carson nodded and picked up his wine. His plate was empty and the server came by to take it away. Georgia let him take hers, as well. She didn’t have much of an appetite and hadn’t since she’d gotten that phone call. The universe had basically ground to a halt at that moment, but no one seemed to notice but her.
“Want to talk about it? I’m all ears,” he said, taking a sip of his wine.
She was almost afraid to talk about what had happened out loud, but she did want to share it with someone. Carson was the only person she’d told about her past, and he might really understand what was going on and how important it was. The only other person she could tell was her former caseworker, Sheila. She’d avoided that call, however. Somehow she worried Sheila wouldn’t think this was a great development.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Well, yesterday evening, I got a phone call. From my mother.”
Carson perked up in his seat. “Your mother? Really?”
Georgia nodded. “I could hardly believe it myself. I’ve gone twenty-six years without her in my life, and then all of a sudden, she calls me out of nowhere. She said she saw my news conference about the hospital last week and hunted down my number to get in contact with me.”
“That must’ve been quite a shock.”
“You have no idea.” She’d actually been in tears. She held it together as long as she could, but once she hung up the phone, she’d bawled like a baby for twenty minutes. It was so surreal to pick up the phone and hear the voice of someone claiming to be her mother. She didn’t even remember what her mother’s voice sounded like, but it didn’t take long to figure out she really was talking to Misty Lynn Adams.
“What did she say?”
“Well, it wasn’t a long call, but she said she was getting her life back together and wanted to reconnect with me. I get the feeling this is part of a recovery program she’s in to stay clean and sober. She wants to come to Chicago and see me.”
“Wow,” Carson said, reaching across the table to take Georgia’s hand. “That’s really great. How do you feel about all this?”
That was the difference between telling this story to someone who grew up with both parents and telling someone like Carson, who knew what it was like to live without knowing your past. Anyone else would’ve asked if she was excited and happy. Those weren’t quite the words for it. Cautious was more like it. Hopeful, but not too much. Being hurt as many times as she had made her loath to jump in with both feet, but she was going to