Page 64 of Forbidden Dark Vows

“He’s old enough to make his own mistakes.”

“I’m not a mistake, Mr. Weiss.” Anger is burning inside my chest and looking for a way to escape. My mom is stubborn, but this man is an asshole, and I can’t believe he’s Harry’s dad.

“That’s what they all say.” Then he hangs up.

22

HARRY

I step outsidethe clinic in Washington city center, and my hackles are raised. I stare across the wide street, at the glass storefronts reflecting the low winter sun, and scan for movement in my peripheral vision. There are too many pedestrians walking with their heads down and their collars turned up for me to notice anything out of the ordinary, but I can’t shake the same eerie sensation I had in Diablo Lake.

Someone is following me.

I turn left, and head back towards my hotel. Another dead end. Another false lead that built up my hopes of finding my sister and dashed them to pieces again. Enough, I tell myself. If Melanie wanted to be found, we’d have been reunited long ago, and I need to start looking forward instead of keeping one eye on the past.

I spot a chestnut-brown dress in the window of a vintage boutique and stop to admire it, thinking of Ruby. She would look stunning in it. Fitted in all the right places, it’s floor length with a fishtail and a row of neat ivory pearls around the neck.

I’m about to go inside and buy it for her, when my gut tells me to look left as a man wearing a long black overcoat steps inside a café a couple of doors along. I might be wrong. It might be someone meeting a friend or picking up a coffee to go, but I don’t waste a beat.

I hurry back the way I came, open the door, and scan the occupied booths. Three women are in the booth closest to me, cheeks rosy with the heat inside the café. Two older women are seated in the booth behind them, reading books in comfortable silence. There’s a family of four in another, two teenagers, and a couple who appear to be around my age, sitting close together, their smiles wide and their eyes bright.

I check out their coats draped across the back of their seats. None of them are black.

I go to the service area and scan the walls for the restroom sign, realizing that I’m now following a complete stranger, but I tell myself that if they’re washing their hands, I’ll turn around, go back to my hotel, and forget all about it. Chalk it up to being paranoid because I’m no closer to finding my sister.

Opening the door tentatively, I already know that the restroom is empty. Was I mistaken? Did they enter one of the stores on either side of the café?

But even as I think this, I know that they came here. I check out the narrow corridor leading past another door that says STAFF ONLY to the fire exit at the end. I’m about to open the external door when a woman comes out of the staffroom and falters when she spots me. “Are you lost?”

“Sorry.” I smile and back away from the door. “Have I gone the wrong way?”

I don’t wait around for her to respond.

Outside, I hail a cab back to the hotel and replay what I saw in my head. I wasn’t certain before, but now I am—someone has followed me from New York to Diablo Lake, and now they’re here in Washington. I don’t know who, or why, but I am going to find out.

I call Ruby from my hotel room and tell her that I’ve had no luck in Washington. I know from ‘Hello’ that something is wrong.

“Is it your dad? What’s happened?”

“No.” In the silence, I picture her chewing her bottom lip, my mind automatically flitting to the conclusion that if it isn’t her dad, there’s a problem with us. “It’syourdad.”

“My dad?”

“I called him earlier. I got his number from Lizzie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to worry you, and after what happened in New York, I wanted to get the situation resolved before we…” Pause. “Well, before we get married, and I think I’ve made things a hundred times worse than they already were, and I wish I’d left it alone.”

I know that I should focus on what she’s saying about my dad, but all I can hear are the words ‘before we get married’, playing through my head like ticker tape, and already I have a mental image of Ruby, barefoot, in a gauzy floral dress with flowers threaded through her hair.

“Ruby, you couldn’t possibly make things worse.”

She chuckles into the phone and sniffs back tears at the same time. “You don’t know what happened yet.”

I can imagine, but I wait for her to elaborate.

“He said you’re making a mistake marrying me.” The words hang between us as though waiting to choose sides.Will they, won’t they?

But, for me, there is no question to be answered. “We’ll be the ones laughing when we prove him wrong, Ruby.”

“But he’s your dad, Harry.”

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