Finally, she murmured, "I'm sorry."
"I don't need your sympathy," he said. "Are we done now?"
"Not quite," she said quickly, sensing he was about to end their conversation. "Why do you think the report was filled with lies?"
"Because the Callaways wanted to protect my mother from going to jail. Maybe they thought it was for the best. My father was dead, and my mother was the only person we had left. I was a kid when it all went down. I didn't know all the ins and outs of it. It wasn't until much later when I started piecing things together that I realized the truth."
"Your father was a cop," Colton interjected. "Why wouldn't the police have investigated his death and discovered the truth?"
Peter shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe my mother played the sympathy card."
"You mean maybe she told someone your father was abusing her?" Olivia asked, unable to understand why Peter was so determined to sweep that part of the story under the rug.
"I don't know what she did."
"You've never asked her? In all the years since then, the subject never came up?" she challenged.
"Not once. I think my mother felt guilty at what she'd done. I, frankly, don't know how she sat through the funeral services. My father's fellow officers spoke of him as a hero. They told the world of all the good he'd done. And my mother just sat there silently. She didn't even cry."
Peter's words resonated deeply within her. She'd sat through the same kind of service when her father died, all the pageantry, all the stories of heroism. In her case, she'd never had reason to doubt those stories, but she'd taken a path different from Peter's. She hadn't revered her father in his death, she'd just been angry that he was gone. But she could see that Peter's adoration had only grown in the intervening years. He'd obviously convinced himself that his father was good and his mother was very, very bad.
"Why do you go to see Molly—if you hate her so much?" she asked. "I've seen you at your mother's bedside twice."
He didn't answer right away. "I don't know. Duty, I guess."
"Did you ever consider that you might not know the whole story of your parents' marriage?"
He shook his head. "I was there. If I didn't know it, who did?"
"Your mother. And those photos paint a very different picture of your father than the one you've drawn for us. Those horrific bruises don't come from a few slaps and shoves. Are you telling me you never saw your mom in that condition?" She picked up the picture and held it up in front of his face. "Look at her. Look at how hurt she is. Was it really a hero who did that?"
"I—I don't think that's her," he prevaricated.
"Of course it's her." She met his gaze head on. "And you know that. You just don't want to let go of the lies you've told yourself all these years."
"What do you know about it? You don't even know her."
"I know what she wrote to me in her letter. I know that she felt silenced by the men in her life and that she had been too cowardly to tell her story. And I know that she was abused, because those pictures don't lie, unless you want them to."
Silence fell between them. "I don't know what you want from me," Peter said. "My mother will probably be dead soon, and I doubt she'll ever regain consciousness. So even if I were inclined to speak to her about it, it's too late. My family is just about gone, Miss Bennett." He paused. "And even if you are Francine's daughter, there's nothing I can do for you."
"I don't want you to do anything for me; I just want the truth." She took a breath, changing the subject. "Do you know who the father of Francine's baby was?"
"I already told you I didn't."
"Even if she didn't give you a name, she never told you anything about him?" Olivia asked, feeling like this was her last chance to get any information on who might be her father.
"She said he was a musician and that she loved him, but he wasn't interested in being a father. As soon as I heard that, I got worried. She'd been doing pretty well for about a year. She hadn't been using and had been going to AA. I'd hoped that her life was on the upswing. She kept it together during the pregnancy, didn't do any drugs, took her vitamins, tried to be healthy. She kept hoping that the guy she was in love with would come back and they'd live happily ever after. That's the kind of girl Francine was; she was always living in a dream world."
Olivia wasn't surprised. It sounded like Francine had had a lot of reasons to want to escape her life. "When did she decide to give her baby up?"
"The day after her daughter was born. She'd been thinking about it for a while. When her baby daddy didn't show up at the hospital, reality set in. She called the social worker and told her she was going to do the right thing for the first time in her life and make sure her daughter had a good home."
Olivia felt a wave of emotion rush through her. She still didn't know the DNA results, but she believed she was Francine's daughter and Molly's granddaughter. And she liked the idea that her biological mother had chosen to give her a better life than the one she had.
"My sister was a good person," Peter continued. "She was just a lost soul after my father died. After I went to college, she got into all kinds of trouble. She needed someone to save her, but my mother wasn't up to the task. She encouraged Francine to give the baby up. She could have helped Francine instead, but she didn't make that offer."
Olivia sighed, not knowing what to think about Molly. "Did Francine tell you anything about the adoptive parents?"
He stared back at her. "She told me that the father was a cop."
A shiver ran down her spine. More evidence that she was Francine's daughter. "My father was a cop."
"Was?" he queried.
"He was killed on the job when I was in high school."
Peter drew in a quick breath. "Well, I guess it's true that the good die young."
"He was good." She wished she could say the same for
his
father—her biological grandfather, but she couldn't.
"So that's it," Peter said. "That's all I know."
"One last question," Colton interjected. "Why did you break into Olivia's hotel room and steal your mother's journals?"
Peter's jaw dropped. "What the hell are you talking about? I don't even know where she's staying."
"I told you I had your mother's journals," Olivia said. "And it probably wouldn't have been that difficult to track me down once you knew my name. This morning, someone broke into my hotel room and took the journals that Molly left behind for me to look through."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I've been here in this office all morning."
Peter didn't appear to be lying. And he'd been pretty forthcoming up to now, so she didn't know what to think. "Who else would be interested in your mother's memories?" she asked. "I can't think of anyone but you."
Peter looked back at her. "I can't, either. I just know it wasn't me. You can take those pictures with you."
"No," she said. "You keep them."
"Fine, whatever." He glanced down at his watch. "I have another appointment. Are we done?"
"For now," she said, unwilling to commit to forever, even if it was very clear that Peter hoped he would never have to see her again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
"Are you okay?" Colton asked, as they waited for the valet to bring their car around.
"I don't know," Olivia said with a helpless shrug.
"Peter wasn't what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who didn't hate his mother, for starters. I don't understand how he could blame her for the abuse or discount the pictures we showed him."
"He's obviously living in a world of denial."
"You should have hung on to the pictures, Olivia."
"Perhaps. I wanted him to really look at the bruises on his mother's body, and I didn't think he'd do that with us standing there."
"He probably threw them into the trash. He doesn't want to hear or see a different story than the one he made up in his head." Anger ran through him at the memory of the excuses Peter had made. Molly deserved a son who would stand up for her, not blame her for being a victim.
"You might be right. What I'm more concerned with now is who broke into my hotel room. I no longer think it was Peter. But with him off the list, I don't know where to go next."
"Who else knows you've been staying at the hotel?"
"I gave my information to Nancy at the senior center; that's how you found me originally. So I'm sure any of the seniors at that center could get my address if they wanted it." She paused for a moment. "Your grandfather isn't back in town, is he?"
"No. He's out of town," Colton said with a frown, his muscles tightening at her words. "He wouldn't break into your hotel room, Olivia. For God's sake, he's eighty-four years old."
"I wasn't accusing him. I was just going down the list of people I've spoken to who don't want me around. And your grandfather is definitely at the top of that list. Besides, most of our suspects are old, so your grandfather's age doesn't make him special. I understand that you're protective about your family, Colton, but I can't let your feelings get in the way of the facts."
"That's harsh," he retorted.
The air sizzled between them, and it wasn't the good kind of electricity.
Olivia gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it the way it came out."
He hoped she didn't, because her words had stung.
"Sometimes I get a little tunnel vision when I'm focused on a problem," she added. "Your feelings do matter to me, Colton."
He nodded, cutting her a little slack since she was under a lot of stress. "Thank you. I understand that you're frustrated. I am, too. And I know that the next logical step is to talk to my grandmother."
"She is the common denominator, Colton."
"Yeah, I wish she wasn't." He paused as the valet brought his car around. They got inside, and a few minutes later they were driving out of the parking structure. He was happy to see the sun again. It lightened the tension of the last hour.
"What I also don't understand," Olivia said as they stopped at a light, "is why Peter would lie about the night of the fire? I get that he's trying to rewrite history when it comes to his mother's abuse. It makes sense that he doesn't want to remember his father as a monster. But why does he have a different story about that night than what is in the fire investigation report?"
"Someone is obviously lying or not remembering it the way it happened." He gave her a quick glance. "Do you think Molly killed Stan as Peter suggested?"
"If she did, it was in self-defense. Do you think your grandparents would try to cover it up to protect her?"
"No." He shook his head, considering the facts. "Molly had those damning photographs of abuse in her possession. We know that they didn't burn in the fire, so she would have had proof that her husband was hitting her. It's doubtful anyone would want to prosecute her for defending herself."
"That's not always true," Olivia argued. "If a jury didn't think it was self-defense but rather that Molly got angry and killed her husband, she could have gone to jail."
He hated to think that the justice system could go wrong like that, but he knew it sometimes happened. "I guess that's possible."
"And a trial would have certainly put a lot of dirty laundry in the spotlight," she added. "Molly might not have wanted to go through that or put her kids through that. I do wonder why Peter never said anything to anyone, though. If he truly thinks his mom is a murderer, why did he stay quiet all these years?"
"Maybe he didn't think anyone would believe him, or perhaps it was part of his desire to live in denial. He was a kid when it happened. He was confused and grief stricken. He'd lost his father and I'm sure he didn't want to lose his mother, too."
"True." She paused for a moment. "You know I've been thinking that there's another angle to this that we haven't considered."
"Really?" he asked, both surprised and hopeful. Because he felt like they were rats running around on a never-ending wheel of frustration. "What's that?"
She shifted in her seat so she could look at him. "The letters that I still have in my purse. Maybe someone is trying to locate one of those women, or what if one of those women is back in town and has heard about me wanting to write a book and wants to protect her secret past?"
"Well, that's a thought, but all of this happened so long ago, Olivia."
"Okay. What about this—what if Ginnie or Constance had a friend that was saved, someone they've stayed in contact with over the years? They might have mentioned I was writing the book and that Molly had left me some of her things. Maybe they got nervous about their part in the railroad. Perhaps someone in one of their families doesn't like the idea of a book any better than your grandfather did. It doesn't have to be Ginnie or Constance; it could be one of their kids or a sibling or anyone tied to them."
He tipped his head. "I can't argue with your theories, but all you're doing is lengthening our list of suspects. What we need to do is narrow it down."
"I know," she said with a sigh. "I'm just trying to come up with a plan of attack."
He thought for a moment as he drove through the city, and there was really only one plan that made sense. "We'll go see my grandmother."
"Really?" Olivia asked, doubt in her voice. "I thought that was your last resort."
"I think we're there. You could be in danger."
"I don't know that I'm in danger," she said slowly. "No one tried to hurt me."
"Not yet," he said heavily.
"Okay, now you're scaring me a little."
"I don't like that someone was in your room. How did they get in there? How did they know you weren't there? I don't like it. And since I don't know who we're dealing with, I don't know what they're capable of doing next. Obviously, your presence and the secrets you're stirring up are making someone nervous."
"Now you're scaring me a little more."
He flashed her a quick, reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I'm going to protect you, Olivia. Nothing is going to happen to you on my watch."