I didn’t have anything to say to that.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “I think he was really proud of who he was. It sounds like he had a very supportive family.”
She smiled at me in a pitying way.
“He tried to hide the fact that he was adopted all of his life. Maybe he didn’t even know he was adopted until adulthood. I’ll never know how he felt about it all except that he didn’t want to admit to it.”
I nodded. She was right. He didn’t want to admit that he was adopted. If Dylan was correct, he’d even killed to keep it a secret. I shuddered to think of how he would have reacted if Neila had tried to contact him after she located him.
“So, all these years that he was living in Grand Rapids—you had no idea?”
She shook her head. “None. I assumed he’d been sent farther away. I don’t know why I thought that, but I always imagined him somewhere warm and sunny. I tried not to think about him very much at all.”
“How did Lucan find him?”
“He’s very good.” She shrugged. “I never quizzed him on his methods.”
“And he’s sure about Rafe?”
She nodded again. “He got close to Rafe through the coven and we sent off a DNA test. It’s been confirmed.”
“Were you planning to tell Rafe?”
“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.” She traced the flowers in her tablecloth with a finger. “I just found out recently that Rafe had been looking into genealogy. He’d been working with that young girl. She apparently knows how to trace things with the computer.” She sipped her tea. “If I’d known he was looking for me as well, I would have gone to him immediately.”
Neila’s lost opportunities and regrets weighed on me. Skye was working on Neila’s family tree. Rafe must have known Neila was his mother. I wondered why, after all this time, he’d been trying to locate his birth parents.
“I just hope that Lucan and I didn’t trigger all of these events.”
“I don’t know how you could have. No one even knew what you were doing,” I said.
“No, but something got Rafe interested in his birth family.”
I wondered whether he would have been pleased in the end to find out that Neila was his mother. She was famous in her own way in Crystal Haven. Would he have found a way to turn that to his advantage? I hated to admit it, but my protectiveness toward Neila had me feeling relieved they’d never met.
34
I left Neila’s house feeling unsettled and anxious. My list of suspects was rapidly diminishing. My mother always told me to pay attention to my dreams and visions. I’d been dreaming about a woman. It had to be Morgan.
I drove to my parents’ to pick up Seth. I knew I’d also have to tell them the story of Lucan’s accident. Dad can only learn so much from his police scanner. I prepared myself for the interrogation that would ensue when they heard I had been out with Mac.
The noise from the dogs and the people enveloped me when I opened the front door.
“Where have you been?”
“I knew it!”
“We were worried.”
I barely heard these statements over the barking of the dogs. After everyone calmed down, we reconvened in the dining room. Mom had one highly polished extra sense—she always knew when I was starving. She brought some coffee and the leftover bagels and cream cheese the rest of them had eaten for breakfast. I hadn’t eaten more than a candy bar since dinner and I gave my food the focus it deserved. For about two bites. Then Vi slapped the table and startled everyone in the room.
“Tell us!”
“Give her a minute, Vi,” Mom said. “She needs to eat.”
Vi narrowed her eyes at both of us, and crossed her arms.
I swallowed and took a sip of coffee. Then, looking at Vi, I started to take another bite but her steely gaze stopped me. I put the bagel down.
“Lucan was hit by a car last night while he was out running,” I said. “He’s already had surgery and the doctors say he’ll recover nicely.”
Vi’s shoulders slumped. “You’re sure he’s okay? Too bad we weren’t following him last night—we might have been able to help.”
I nodded. “I think so. He’s got a broken leg, but he should be all right.”
“What happened?” Dad asked. “I heard about a 10-57 on the scanner. The driver didn’t stop to help him?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t see who the driver was, but they ran into him on purpose . . . and then backed over him.”
Mom gasped and reached for her amulet. Seth grimaced and shook his head.
“Is this related to Rafe?”
“I don’t know. It might be.” I didn’t know how much I could tell them without revealing Neila’s secret and the fact that I had been visiting her.
“Well, we know Dylan didn’t do it,” Dad said. “If it is connected, that should get Dylan out of jail.”
“Who would do something like that? It’s horrible,” Mom said.
I caught Vi’s eye and we both said, “Morgan Lavelle.”
Seth shook his head. “I don’t know.”