Page 123 of I Will Find You

Gertrude closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear this again.

“There was a reason God gave him that on his face.”

“It’s a birthmark, Hayden.”

“It’s how they spotted him. There’s a reason.”

She knew that wasn’t so. It wasn’t fate or God’s will or any of that. You see a street crossing. Millions of people cross that street every year. Nothing happens. Then one day, a combination of things—ice on the road maybe, a driver texting, too much drink, whatever—and a pedestrian gets hit and killed. It’s a one-in-ten-million thing, but it isn’t a coincidence. It happens. If it doesn’t, there is no story.

That photograph was their one in ten million.

Or perhaps Hayden was right. Perhaps a higher entity wanted it to happen.

“Either way,” Gertrude said, “it’s time for you both to leave.”

“It will look suspicious,” Hayden said. “Rachel asks me for the amusement-park photos, and I suddenly end up out of the country?”

“Pixie, I have to tell you something…”

He’d sounded like such a little boy that night, but that’s what men always sounded like when they were in trouble and needed to be saved. So she saved him. She saved her family. She saved them all. Again.

And had she saved Theo?

It didn’t matter. She would keep this secret. Again.

She had also created a fresh secret, one about the boy, one that no one, not even Hayden, knew.

That didn’t matter now. None of it did. Once again, Gertrude Payne was left to save the family. And so, no matter the cost to others, she would.

***

Max and Sarah were entering St. Barnabas Medical Center to question Cheryl Burroughs when Max’s phone buzzed. He saw the incoming call was from Lauren.

“Give me a second,” he said to Sarah.

He moved away from her so she couldn’t hear. Sarah still eyed him. He put the phone to his ear and said, “What’s up?”

“I got the paternity result,” Lauren said.

She gave it to him. Then she said, “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Maybe nothing. Give me an hour.”

He hung up the phone and came back to Sarah.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Uh, my new guy.”

“Again? He’s kind of needy.”

“Sarah—”

“Did you two meet at summer camp? Does he live in Canada?”

“Huh?”

“Who called, Max?”

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