She nodded. It was very hard to contain her disappointment. “What are my kids being told about why I won’t be there for the trophy presentation?” she asked.
“I’ve briefed the Durand manager of human resources—Guy Morales, he’s just under Kehoe and will be taking over his duties for now—to hold a meeting with the managers, key camp employees, and the other counselors about the basic details of what happened up at the castle last night. Guy is going to determine which of the managers is most familiar to your kids, and have that person break the news to them. The media was informed that an arrest was made last night, and that there were two assaults and a breakin at the castle, but no names or specifics have been released yet. This should be the first your kids hear of it, and then a more generalized announcement will be made to the whole camp. Whoever tells your kids the news will assure them that you’re going to be fine.”
Alice sniffed. Dylan handed her a tissue wordlessly.
“Jessica Moder knows them best, but I don’t know if she’ll be up for it. She came down with the flu on Thursday night,” Alice said. “I’d rather Dave Epstein and Kuvi told them. And . . . and please have them make sure they keep an eye on Jill Sanchez. She’ll probably be more unsettled than any of the others. Can you put in a special request to have them ask Judith Arnold, the team leader, to especially look out for her? Although she probably will anyway.”
“I’ll tell all that to Guy. Alice, do you think you can talk to the police about what happened now?”
“You said the FBI, too. Earlier.”
He nodded. “That’s what I planned on telling you after we met last night. It seems Jim Sheridan did some digging on his own, and made the connection between Sissy and Avery Cunningham, which confirmed what he already suspected about you being Addie Durand. When he confronted me, I told him everything I knew. He contacted the FBI with the information last evening. Two agents arrived in Morgantown to interview us this morning, only to find that you were here at the hospital, and their dead case file had come back to life in the biggest way possible.” He grimaced. “They’ve already interviewed Thad and me. They’re very eager to speak with you.”
“I don’t want to talk to them.”
“I’m sorry, Alice. I really am. But I can’t put them off—”
“No . . . I just mean I don’t want to talk to them until I talk to you,” she said hastily. “About the things Kehoe said last night, when he attacked me.” The memory suddenly fresh in her brain, she winced and gagged.
“Alice?” Dylan said, standing and leaning over her. “Are you going to be sick?”
She shook her head, bringing her instinctive reaction under control as best she could. “I think . . . I think Kehoe might be my biological father,” she said quickly, before the nausea rose in her throat again.
“No,” Dylan said with abrupt harshness.
Misery overwhelmed her. She’d known Dylan would never want to believe that she wasn’t Alan Durand’s daughter, but she hadn’t thought he’d deny it so stringently. She had to tell him before she told the police and FBI, or worse yet, Kehoe confessed it and Dylan discovered the truth in some roundabout fashion. It’d been toward Alan that Dylan had felt so much loyalty. It’d been Alan’s grief at the loss of Addie for which Dylan had felt a lifelong guilt and experienced a personal mandate to set things right.
It was agony for her to tell him that all of his guilt and his mission to see her returned to her rightful place as Alan Durand’s daughter had been for nothing.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered shakily. “Kehoe said that he and Lynn Durand had had an affair. She wanted a baby so bad that she betrayed Alan because he couldn’t get her pregnant.”
“I know,” Dylan said calmly. “I know all about it.”
“What?” Alice asked, sure she’d heard him incorrectly.
“I found some of Lynn’s journals last evening. I started to wonder why Lynn would tell a three-or four-year-old child to hide alone in dark, scary places. It seemed completely out of character from what I knew about her. She doted on you, and rarely let you out of her sight. Then I remembered you saying that the hiding places were hers, too, and I don’t know . . . something clicked for me. I went back to the castle and inspected a couple of the secret compartments in the castle. In your old bedroom, I found four of Lynn’s journals in a secret room Deanna Shrevecraft had shown me once. I think Lynn placed them there on purpose because of their contents, to be found some day.”