Chapter 15 - Noah Grant
Noah answered my call on the third ring.
“Claire?”
I had not heard his voice in seven years.
“Why were you at my daughter’s school?”
Silence.
Then: “I can explain.”
I almost laughed. That sentence was becoming the anthem of my life.
“Try.”
He said a woman had contacted him six months earlier. She claimed to be an investigator for the Mercer family and asked whether there was any chance he could be Ellie’s biological father.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth. That I didn’t know.”
“Then why did you go to the school?”
“She sent me a photo. I wanted to see her once. From a distance. I know that was wrong.”
“Did you speak to Ellie?”
“No.”
“Did Margaret pay you?”
“No.”
“Did Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Will you take a DNA test?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Daniel left the room before I finished the call.
I found him sitting in the stairwell.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He stared at the floor. “If she isn’t mine…”
“She is yours.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I deserve a lot of what’s happening to me. But not that.”
For the first time since dinner, I felt something other than anger toward him.
Not forgiveness.
Pain.
“We’ll know soon,” I said.
The test was expedited because of the trust proceeding.
Forty-eight hours later, the results came in.
Daniel was Ellie’s biological father.
He cried when he saw the report.
I did too, though for different reasons.
Noah sent one message: I’m glad she has her father. I’m sorry I stepped into your life again.
The paternity issue should have ended Margaret’s last advantage.
Instead, the sealed amendment contained one more clause.
If evidence showed either parent had knowingly endangered Ellie, the trust assets would transfer to an independent guardian selected by the court.
The prosecutor looked at Daniel.
So did I.
May you like
Because his signature was on the emergency guardianship petition.
And Margaret’s lawyers were about to argue that he had been part of the plan from the beginning.
