Page 127 of Lee

“Faking your death?”

Lee nodded. “And hiding all this from me.”

The detective lifted his mug and took a sip, a contemplative expression on his face. “Yes. I believe that those two things have allowed you to live a much better life than if you’d grown up with the knowledge of what happened. It would have been very difficult for a young boy or teen to grasp it all.”

That was certainly true. He was an adult and having trouble grasping what had happened.

“Ideally, you would have gone to your grave never knowing this.”

Which was probably why his parents had never revealed what they knew—if they knew anything—about his past.

But now that wasn’t going to happen. He had the answers he’d sought, and yet he wished he’d never gone down this road.

What was he supposed to do with the knowledge?

He didn’t want to tell anyone what he’d found out.

Would his family look at him differently if they knew about his past?

Would Rori?

Lee’s stomach twisted at the thought. No, he couldn’t tell anyone. Somehow, he had to pretend he knew nothing about what had happened to him.

“One more thing,” Peter began. “I’d recommend you remove yourself from the DNA site as soon as possible. I don’t know who—if anyone—in your biological family knows you’re still alive, so best not to give them a way to contact you and ask you questions about who you are. I believe that the renewed interest in your case—and hence the documentary—is because your mom is up for parole next summer. So erasing any connection you might have to your biological relatives would be a good idea.”

Lee was glad for the advice, since he definitely didn’t want contact with his biological family. He probably would have figured out he should delete his account, eventually. But right then, his brain was far too cluttered with his emotional overload to think of things like that.

He needed to pull himself together, but he wasn’t sure how.

In the space of an hour, he had been shattered into a million pieces. The person he’d always been—and the one he’d thought he’d be, even with answers about his past—was gone.

The identity he’d always had as the Halversons’ son had been usurped by the one he’d just learned about. That he was the son of parents who were not just abusers, but murderers of their children.

His stomach churned with the realization that his life had been irrevocably changed, and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

When he left the coffee shop a short time later, the envelope clutched in his hand, Lee didn’t know where to go. He wasn’t sure he could face his family, and yet he had to.

When he got home, Charli spotted him and frowned with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not feeling so good,” he said, which was one hundred percent the truth. “My stomach is really bothering me.”

“That’s not good,” Charli said. “I hope it’s nothing contagious.”

“On the off-chance it is, I’m going to isolate myself in my room.”

“What about your date this evening?”

“I’ll have to cancel it,” Lee said. “I don’t want to chance Rori getting sick.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s probably for the best.”

Nothing was for the best anymore. There was no best in his life. Everything was terrible.

“I’m going to lie down.”

As he stepped into his bedroom, Lee wished it was as easy to escape his newly acquired information as it had been his sister.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

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