Chapter 3 - Brianna’s First Daughter
Logan had imagined many explanations.
None had included those four words.
She’s my daughter.
“You have another child?”
Brianna nodded.
“How old?”
“Fourteen.”
Logan stepped backward.
Fourteen.
He and Brianna had been married eight years.
They had met nine years ago.
That meant the girl had existed long before him.
Yet Brianna had never mentioned her.
Not once.
“What happened?”
Brianna sat on an old trunk.
“I was twenty-one.”
She stared at her hands.
“I was finishing college. My parents had very specific ideas about what my life was supposed to look like.”
Logan knew Brianna’s father, Richard Hale.
Former banker.
Old money.
Obsessed with appearances.
“What did they do?”
“My mother found out first. My father found out the next morning.”
Brianna laughed bitterly.
“By lunchtime, they had planned the rest of my pregnancy.”
Logan said nothing.
“My aunt Miriam couldn’t have children. My father said the baby could stay in the family. Miriam and her husband would adopt her.”
“Nora.”
“Yes.”
“Did you agree?”
“I was twenty-one and financially dependent on my parents. So I told myself I agreed.”
That distinction landed heavily.
“Miriam raised her?”
“Until six months ago.”
“What happened six months ago?”
“Cancer.”
Logan remembered Brianna flying to Vermont twice that winter.
She had said Aunt Miriam was ill.
“She died?”
“In June.”
“Where has Nora been since?”
“With Miriam’s husband until August. Then he had a stroke and went into assisted care. Nora was placed temporarily with one of Miriam’s friends while the guardianship was sorted out.”
“And then?”
“She found letters.”
“What letters?”
“Mine.”
Brianna looked toward the wall.
“I wrote to her every birthday for years. I never sent them. Miriam had copies.”
“Why?”
“Miriam wanted Nora to know someday.”
Logan rubbed his forehead.
“So Nora discovers you’re her biological mother and comes here.”
“Three nights ago.”
“And instead of telling me, you hide her in the attic?”
“I didn’t hide her there the way you’re imagining.”
“How should I imagine it?”
“That room isn’t a prison. It’s an old nursery suite. It has another entrance through the service stairs.”
Logan stared.
“You put a fourteen-year-old girl in a secret room.”
“She asked me not to send her back.”
“And you thought the solution was to keep her behind a wall?”
“For one night.”
“It’s been three.”
“I kept trying to tell you.”
“No. You kept not telling me.”
Brianna stood.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“No, Brianna. I don’t know what you know anymore.”
That silenced her.
Logan remembered Ava.
“My six-year-old found her.”
“Nora heard Ava playing upstairs. They talked through the old vent.”
“Then Nora told Ava she was her sister.”
Brianna closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“She was telling the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And you screamed at Ava for it.”
“I panicked.”
“You punished our daughter for accidentally exposing your lie.”
Brianna flinched.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Logan headed downstairs.
“Where are you going?”
“To get the envelope.”
Brianna’s fear returned.
“Logan.”
“What?”
“The letters aren’t the whole reason Nora came.”
He waited.
Brianna continued reluctantly.
“Miriam handled part of my grandmother’s estate.”
“What does that have to do with Nora?”
“Everything.”
Brianna’s grandmother, Eleanor Hale, had died nine years earlier.
Hale House—the property where Logan and Brianna now lived—had passed into a family trust.
Logan had never understood the complicated structure.
Brianna had assured him it was handled.
“She created a descendants’ trust,” Brianna said.
“For you?”
“For my mother’s branch of the family.”
“And?”
“Every living child in that branch was supposed to receive a beneficial share.”
Logan understood before she finished.
“Nora.”
Brianna nodded.
“She should have been listed.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father said the adoption meant she no longer qualified.”
“Was he right?”
“No.”
Logan felt something shift.
“How much money?”
Brianna looked away.
“How much?”
“The trust is worth around eleven million.”
Logan stopped moving.
“And Nora’s share?”
“If calculated from her birth…”
Brianna swallowed.
“More than one million dollars.”
Logan stared at her.
“Did you know?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you know?”
She did not answer.
That answer was enough.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Logan’s voice became quiet.
“And you did nothing?”
“I confronted my father.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“He said changing it would trigger an audit of every distribution.”
“Why would that matter?”
Brianna stared at the floor.
“Because some of the money didn’t go where the trust records say it went.”
Logan thought of Ava’s message.
Somebody had been signing your name.
“Who took it?”
Brianna whispered:
“My father.”
“And where does my name fit into this?”
Brianna looked at him.
There was a kind of dread in her face he had never seen before.
“Because, Logan…”
May you like
She drew a shaky breath.
“According to the paperwork, you approved some of the transfers.”
