Chapter 10 - The Empty Chair at Christmas
Her name was Hannah Reed.
She had spent twenty-seven years believing her biological mother was
unknown.
Three weeks earlier, an envelope arrived at her apartment in Milwaukee
containing Rachel Monroe’s photograph, a Cross family newspaper
clipping, and a message:
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU WERE BORN, GO TO GIDEON CROSS ON CHRISTMAS
NIGHT.
Hannah had almost thrown it away.
Then someone broke into her apartment.
She drove to Chicago with her eleven-month-old son and never went back.
Caleb stared at her.
“You’re saying we’re twins?”
“No. I’m five years younger.”
Caroline understood first.
“Another embryo.”
Hannah nodded.
“My adoptive mother told me the agency said I came from an anonymous
embryo donation.”
Gideon looked sick.
Someone had taken reproductive material belonging to him and Caroline
and used it without their consent.
Caroline sat beside him.
For once, neither anger nor betrayal separated them.
Only horror.
Hannah’s DNA test was conducted through police.
The result came the next morning.
Gideon was her biological father.
Caroline was her biological mother.
Caroline cried until she could barely speak.
Hannah did not call them Mom or Dad.
Nobody asked her to.
Instead they sat beside the Christmas tree while snow covered Chicago
and began with ordinary questions.
“What do you do?” Gideon asked.
“I teach fourth grade.”
“Do you like it?”
“Most days.”
“Your son?”
“Eli.”
Gideon looked at the baby.
“May I?”
Hannah hesitated.
Then placed Eli carefully in his arms.
The feared Gideon Cross looked terrified.
Lucy climbed onto the sofa.
“Babies are easy.”
“You’re six.”
“I know babies.”
Eli grabbed Gideon’s tie.
Lucy nodded.
“He likes you.”
Gideon’s eyes filled.
Across the room Caleb watched.
Something in his expression softened.
Not acceptance.
Not yet.
But possibility.
Police found Thomas Vale on December 27 at a private airfield.
He had passports, cash, and documents linking him to Warren, Voss,
Daniel’s death, Caroline’s attempted murder, and Gideon’s crash.
But Thomas refused to explain why he had sent Hannah to the mansion.
“You think I wanted the Cross children dead?” he asked detectives. “You
still don’t understand.”
Warren made a deal.
He admitted theft, conspiracy, evidence destruction, and arranging
Gideon’s medication through Voss. He insisted Thomas ordered the
violence.
Gideon did not visit him.
“Don’t you want answers?” Elena asked.
“I spent eight months thinking revenge was the same thing as recovery.”
“And now?”
Gideon looked toward the living room.
Lucy was teaching Hannah how to make paper snowflakes. Caroline held
Eli. Caleb stood nearby pretending not to participate while secretly
fixing Lucy’s scissors.
“Now I have better things to do.”
His physical recovery remained uncertain.
He could stand with braces.
He could take several assisted steps.
His doctor warned that progress might be slow and incomplete.
Gideon accepted that.
For the first time, walking was no longer the condition he placed on
having a life.
Elena received compensation from Cross Freight for Daniel’s death and
the benefits stolen from him. Gideon also created a restitution fund for
every injured worker whose money had been diverted.
Elena refused his offer of a mansion.
“I don’t need a mansion.”
“A house?”
“I can buy my own.”
“A car?”
“Gideon.”
“I am trying to help.”
“Then give me a job that doesn’t involve cleaning up after you.”
He considered it.
“Internal compliance director.”
She blinked.
“That’s a real job.”
“I am occasionally serious.”
“Salary?”
He named it.
Elena stared.
“Are you insane?”
“Frequently, according to Lucy.”
From the doorway Lucy shouted, “True!”
Elena laughed.
Caroline and Gideon did not magically become husband and wife again.
Too much had happened.
But on New Year’s Eve, Caroline sat beside his wheelchair while the
family watched snow fall beyond the windows.
“I don’t know what we are,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
“Does that bother you?”
“It used to.”
“And now?”
Gideon looked around the room.
Caleb had stayed.
Hannah had stayed.
Elena and Lucy had stayed.
Mrs. Bell was arguing with a caterer.
Baby Eli was asleep beneath the Christmas tree.
“Now I think not knowing can be better than believing the wrong thing.”
Caroline slipped her hand into his.
He held it.
At eleven fifty-eight, Lucy demanded that Gideon stand for midnight.
“That is emotional blackmail.”
“Yes.”
“Who taught you that phrase?”
“Mr. Caleb.”
Caleb nearly choked on his drink.
With braces locked and Caleb on one side, Elena on the other, Gideon
rose.
Ten seconds before midnight.
His knees shook.
Five.
Caroline stepped in front of him.
Three.
Lucy shouted, “Don’t fall!”
“Helpful,” Gideon muttered.
One.
The room erupted.
Happy New Year.
Gideon remained standing.
Then he took one careful step toward Caroline.
No one spoke.
A second step.
He stopped, exhausted.
Caroline touched his face.
“You came back.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
He looked at everyone around him.
“I went somewhere new.”
Later, after Lucy fell asleep beneath a blanket on the sofa, Elena
carried her upstairs.
A folded paper slipped from the child’s coat pocket.
Elena assumed it was another drawing.
It wasn’t.
It was an old photograph.
Daniel stood beside Rachel Monroe outside a hospital.
Rachel held two newborn babies.
Not one.
Two.
Elena’s blood went cold.
She turned the photograph over.
Daniel had written:
CALEB WAS NEVER THE CHILD THEY WERE LOOKING FOR.
Beneath that, in fresher ink, someone else had added:
NEITHER WAS HANNAH.
Elena ran downstairs.
Gideon read the message twice.
Caleb checked every door.
Caroline went pale.
Hannah clutched Eli.
“Where did Lucy get this?”
Elena rushed back upstairs.
Lucy was awake.
“Sweetheart, where did you find the picture?”
“A man gave it to me.”
Elena’s heart stopped.
“What man?”
“At church.”
“When?”
“Christmas.”
“What did he look like?”
Lucy thought carefully.
“Old. He knew Daddy.”
Gideon rolled into the doorway.
“What did he say?”
Lucy rubbed her sleepy eyes.
“He said Daddy saved the wrong baby first.”
Nobody moved.
Outside, fireworks burst above the frozen lake.
Red.
Gold.
White.
Lucy reached beneath her pillow.
“He gave me this too.”
She held out a hospital bracelet.
The faded name was still readable.
BABY CROSS.
Female.
Born December 24, 1994.
Caroline whispered, “That date is impossible.”
Gideon looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because that was seven years before our fertility treatment.”
Silence filled the room.
Then Mrs. Bell appeared behind them.
She saw the bracelet.
Her face collapsed.
“Oh, God.”
Gideon turned slowly.
“You know what this is.”
Mrs. Bell began to cry.
“I promised your mother I would never tell you.”
“My mother?”
She nodded.
“Evelyn didn’t come back to Chicago because of Warren.”
“Why did she come?”
Mrs. Bell looked toward the dark staircase.
“To find the daughter your father erased from the family before you ever
met Caroline.”
Gideon stared at her.
“I have a sister?”
Mrs. Bell shook her head.
“No.”
Her next words landed harder than any bullet.
“You have a daughter.”
Downstairs, the front-door chime rang once.
Caleb checked the security monitor.
A woman stood alone beyond the gates in the falling snow.
She was thirty-two years old.
Around her neck hung the other half of Caroline’s silver anniversary
necklace.
And in her hand was a sign written in black marker:
ASK GIDEON WHAT HAPPENED ON CHRISTMAS EVE, 1994.
Gideon looked at the date again.
He had been eleven years old in 1994.
Which meant the message could not possibly be true.
Unless the girl outside was not his daughter at all.
May you like
Unless someone had spent decades rewriting the Cross family tree.
And somewhere in the mansion, a telephone began to ring.
