I decided to stop cutting. And no, my shrink didn’t get me to stop. I just know it’s an addiction, like Tasha’s little blue pills. Life isn’t all one long horror show. That’s what I’m starting to believe. There are good people out there, people like Sophia and Tasha, doing their best in a sometimes pretty crappy world. Where does this epiphany (thank you again SAT prep) come from, you ask? Well, Tasha came through for me yesterday. She came through BIG TIME. She called to tell me she got the information from Casper. I guess she told Casper the police were going to file charges or something unless he could prove Jade was alive. Ha! He totally bought it and Tasha is totally brilliant. So now I know where to find Jade. I guess the whole experience made me realize there is good in this world. Now I’ve got a chance to pay it forward. So I’m going to put down the knife for a while, stop cutting, and try and prove to myself that feeling better doesn’t mean I have to make myself feel worse.
CHAPTER 53
“Just tell me,” Angie said. “I’m a big girl, Dad. I can handle it.” “You’ve got to promise me that it’s over. You and the photograph, this investigation of yours, it’s done. No more digging.”
“You know this girl?” Angie said, holding up the picture of Isabella Conti. Blood gushed like a rapid through her veins as she recalled her father’s ominous warning. I can assure you, you’re not prepared for this. If he did know Isabella Conti, it would mean he had lied to her, time and time again.
“No,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know the girl in the photograph. I promise you that’s true. But I do know why your mother—well, why you couldn’t get her social security application.”
“Why?” Angie’s jaw set tight as she placed the photo face up on the table. Isabella’s sad expression gazed up at her.
“Your mother never had one filed,” Gabriel said, “at least not with that number.”
Angie put her hand to her mouth. Something about what her father said, or how he said it, triggered a thought. She came up with a reason, one inspired by her research into the Conti clan, and her theory caused her stomach to drop. “Was my mom—was she in witness protection?”
One look into her father’s eyes told Angie had struck the bull’s-eye.
“Not exactly,” her father said. “I was. Your mom came along because of me.”
Angie’s head began to spin. “Wait. Then . . . then that means—”
“Yes, sweetheart. It means you’re in witness protection, too. You grew up in the program, only you didn’t know it.”
Without warning, Angie’s stomach lurched as her head began to buzz. A dizzy feeling overcame her and set the room on a tilt. “Everything is a—It’s all a lie,” she said, stammering. “The orphanage, your scholarship to college, meeting Mom, the fight with her family over me, it was all . . . all a lie.”
Angie gasped for breath. She pushed away from the table and rushed to the bathroom, where she sent what little she’d had to eat into the toilet. Afterwards, over the porcelain sink with the water running, she gazed into the mirror, seeing a phantom of herself, a sickly pale reflection of a woman she didn’t know, of someone with a secret past.
Questions peppered her like shotgun pellets. Who were her grandparents? Did she have other relatives? Were they living? Were they nearby? Why did her dad enter witness protection? Who was Angie beforehand? She had to have a different last name, something other than DeRose. What was it?
Her father was right—she wasn’t prepared for this. No, not in the least.
Emerging from the bathroom on shaky legs, she used the wall to keep upright. She gazed ahead vacantly, focused on nothing at all.
Eventually, she retook her seat, but had a difficult time making eye contact with her father. “How could you do this to me?”
“What difference did it make?” Gabriel answered, reaching across the table for Angie’s hand.
She pulled away from his touch.
Gabriel pushed his chair back and lowered his head. “Your story was going to be the same regardless. Either way, your mom and me were going to be the only family you knew, we were all you could ever know. What we told you was a lie, yes, but in a way, not much of one if you think about it. Your life isn’t that different from the truth.”
Angie forced herself to make eye contact. “How can you even say that?”
“You are a DeRose, and what matters is that you had us.”
“Who—Who am I really?” Angie’s voice trembled while her stomach continued with an array of somersaults.
“You’re Angie.”
“No, no. My birth name. What is the name on my real birth certificate?”