Page 29 of Mistaken Identity
“You have a friend with a place like this?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at the house.
“Yeah,” I said. “Both of our great-grandfathers died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. We hit it off during boot camp. Found out that we had a lot in common. His house was passed down to him from multiple generations ago. His great-grandfather, like mine, had lived here his entire life.”
“Where’s your place at?” she asked.
“North Shore,” he answered. “On the Big Island.”
“Ahhh,” she said. “I’ll bet those taxes are insane.”
“You have no idea,” I grumbled. “It takes Dad and me paying the taxes combined to make it.”
“Why keep it?” she questioned.
I smiled. “My great-grandmother and grandfather loved the place. My great-grandmother still loves to visit it, and she doesn’t have much longer to live, so we’ll keep it at least until she passes. From there, we’ll make the decision. We love the house and the location, and I’m sure they’d pay fifty times what it’s worth to get it due to its location, but it’s right here deep in my heart. The island. I don’t want to let it go.”
“You have the money now, Audi,” she pointed out, once again using my nickname that I hadn’t heard in years. “Laney left you millions.”
She had.
Laney dying had left me with her entire trust fund.
That trust fund had three hundred and fifty million dollars in it.
But…
“It’s not really mine. I’m going to make sure that it goes to Lottie when she’s old enough,” I said.
Her eyes came to me. “Are you going to tell him?”
I looked up at the sunset that was lighting up the sky and said, “When we’re back. Morally, now that I know, I won’t be able to keep that from him. He already had one of his children kept from him for her entire life. I’m not adding another.”
“You didn’t know,” she pointed out. “That was my fault, I guess.”
I snorted. “No, that was definitely Laney’s fault. I can’t believe that she would do something like that. Not tell us.”
Us being myself and Cakes.
It was obvious that she’d told Creole knowing that Creole wouldn’t share.
Thinking of why Creole hadn’t shared once again set off that chain reaction of guilt, bile, and horror swirling through my system.
It was one thing that I didn’t think I could ever get over.
But I had to bring it up.
I had to let her know…
I had to make sure she knew that had I known what had been going on that night, I would’ve never, not ever, left her.
“Creole…” I said as a dolphin jumped out of the water in the distance. “I need to tell you something.”
She glanced at me, and the sound of the waves pounding up against the molten rock ceased to exist once our eyes met.
“What?” she wondered.
I looked away, studying the waves that were swirling around tumultuously between the layers of rock, knowing I couldn’t say what I needed to say while looking in her eyes.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
