Page 26 of Kept in the Dark

“Well, take some time to think about it. I know it’s a hard decision.” Hailey quickly added, “But you have until Trey calls me back to decide because I already asked for his help.” Hailey closed her eyes, ready for Sara’s harsh reaction.

Sara stood and threw up her arms. “You what?! Have you lost your mind?”

“I don’t exactly want to talk to him either, but he kind of needs to be on our side to get the D.A. to even look at your case again.”

“Well since he hates you, my chances are slim to none.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. And besides, there’s something else I came to tell you.” Hailey blurted out, “Dad cheated on Mom and had a kid with his mistress.”

Sara’s mouth gaped open. “Who told you that?”

“Gen gave me Mom’s diaries. Apparently, Mom suspected he’d been cheating but it didn’t come out until the mistress got pregnant. I guess Mom said he had to cut ties from them if he wanted to stay married.”

“When did this happen?” Sara asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

“A few years before we were born.”

“Who was he cheating with? Did she say who the baby was?”

Hailey shook her head. “She never said, at least not what I’ve read so far. And since we’ve never been told about a half sibling, I'm assuming Dad won’t give us any answers either.”

Sara sunk into the couch and picked at a loose thread. “I’m not surprised. He wasn’t exactly man of the year. At least not to us, anyway.”

Hailey stared at a stain on the carpet as she thought about the months leading up to her mother’s murder. Though there was always tension between her parents, it seemed to be more prominent about a month before Morgan died. They had both been acting strange. David had spent a lot of time at work and was more hostile than usual. Morgan had disappeared into herself and was distant from everyone.

Her once bubbly and confident mother seemed to have closed herself off from the world. Did David start another affair? Maybe he resumed the one that ended in a pregnancy.

“What if the affair has to do with her death?” Hailey asked

“I mean, it’s pretty far-fetched. From what you said, Mom was clear that if he kept seeing the other woman or the baby, she would divorce him. They didn’t get a divorce, so he clearly stopped.”

“What if the baby sought him out and it caused a rift? I can’t imagine the kid was happy to find out Mom made Dad abandon them. He or she would have been twenty at that point, it’s not out of the ordinary for a kid to look for their biological parents once they reach adulthood.”

“I guess…but why would that get her killed? It seems like a stretch.” Sara ran her hand through her hair. “I think you’re jumping at shadows.”

Hailey said, “I think we need to look at all the angles. Even the affair. If we’re wrong, we’ll just rule it out and move on to the next thing.”

“Who’s “we”? I haven't agreed to anything.”

“Can you seriously look me in the eye and say you don’t want to know the truth? That you don’t want justice for Mom or for people to know you’re innocent?”

Sara’s shoulders slumped slightly. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to make my life more miserable than it already is.”

“You deserve better. And if you don't do it for yourself, do it for Mom.”

Sara shot Hailey a look and then sighed. “Do you really think an affair could be the reason she was killed?”

“I could be completely wrong, but people have been killed for less. Besides,” Hailey stared at Sara intently, “don’t you want to know who our half sibling is?”

Hailey had always been too curious for her own good and it had gotten her into a lot of trouble as a kid: eavesdropping on conversations, inviting herself places she wasn’t allowed to be, snooping around room’s she had no business being in.

Sara rolled her eyes. “Who cares? We’ve gone thirty-one years without knowing we even had a sibling. How are we going to find out who it is if Dad won't admit to the affair?” Sara pulled her legs up onto the couch, trying to get comfortable. “It’s not like he would have confided in someone about it.”

Hailey thought for a moment and then perked up. “If anything was happening in that house, I bet Gen would know about it.”

It wasn’t a secret that David trusted Genevieve. The two had a long history and it was clear the woman was loyal to him, even if he was no longer the boy she had once played with all those years ago. And Hailey knew Genevieve must have heard something with as much time as she spent working at the Gallagher Estate. Genevieve likely knew more secrets than the walls of that house.

And if Genevieve didn’t know who the other woman was, Uncle Eli would.

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