Lawson did not take the envelope immediately.
For several seconds, he simply stared at it.
Genevieve had been dead for two years.
He had packed away most of her clothing himself because he could not tolerate watching strangers touch it. Her jewelry remained locked in the bedroom safe. Her books were exactly where she had left them.
Her handwriting was impossible to mistake.
Still, Lawson's first instinct was suspicion.
“How did you get that?”
Mara held the envelope with both hands now.
“She gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Before she died.”
Lawson's face changed.
Prescott noticed and stepped slightly closer.
“That's not possible,” Lawson said.
“It is.”
“My wife didn't know you.”
Mara's expression tightened.
“Yes, she did.”
A quiet click sounded as one of the guards adjusted his position.
Lawson ignored it.
“Search her.”
Mara did not protest.
A female security officer escorted her into an adjoining room while Prescott took the canvas bag.
Inside were two shirts, a toothbrush, an empty water bottle, a small photograph, and thirty-seven dollars.
No weapon.
No listening device.
No second phone.
Nothing suggesting she had been sent by Crosby Vane.
Prescott handed Lawson the photograph.
Two young women stood beside Lake Michigan.
One was Mara.
The other was Genevieve.
Lawson looked at the picture for a long time.
Genevieve looked younger.
Maybe twenty-three.
Her arm was around Mara's shoulders.
Both were laughing.
Lawson turned the photograph over.
On the back, Genevieve had written:
Some sisters are found late. Love doesn't care. — G
Lawson felt the old wound in his chest tear open.
Mara returned.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She saw the picture in his hand.
“It means your wife had a sister.”
“Genevieve was an only child.”
“That's what she believed most of her life.”
Lawson said nothing.
Mara lowered her eyes.
“Our mother was Elaine Ellison.”
The name meant nothing to him.
“She had Genevieve when she was nineteen. Genevieve was adopted privately by the Ashford family. Years later, my mother married my father and had me.”
Lawson looked at Prescott.
“Verify it.”
“Already started.”
Mara continued.
“My mother told me about Genevieve when she was dying. I found her six years ago.”
“Six years?”
“Yes.”
“I was married to her.”
“I know.”
“And somehow I never heard your name.”
“She asked me not to contact you.”
That answer hurt more than Lawson expected.
“Why?”
Mara's gaze moved around the grand foyer—the marble staircase, chandelier, guards, cameras.
“Because she was afraid of your world.”
One of the guards looked away.
Lawson did not.
“My world gave her everything.”
“She loved you.”
“You don't know anything about what she felt.”
Mara met his stare.
“She talked about you constantly.”
That silenced him.
“She said you could terrify an entire room without raising your voice. She said you pretended not to like old movies even though she caught you crying at one.”
Prescott suddenly became fascinated with the ceiling.
Lawson glared at him.
Mara almost smiled.
Almost.
Then her expression softened.
“She loved you very much.”
Lawson looked down at the envelope.
“Why hide you?”
“Because people around you could use family as leverage.”
He could not argue.
Crosby Vane's scouts near the fence had already proven the point.
Mara went on.
“Genevieve wanted me outside this life.”
“You said she gave you this before she died.”
“Three weeks before.”
Lawson's eyes sharpened.
Genevieve had died in what police called a traffic accident during heavy rain.
Her car had crossed the center line.
There had been no evidence of foul play.
Lawson had investigated anyway.
Then investigated again.
Nothing.
“What did she know?”
“Nothing about the accident.”
Mara seemed to understand his thought immediately.
“She just… worried.”
“About the children?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mara looked toward the east wing.
“Let me give you the letter.”
Lawson took it.
His fingers felt clumsy.
The envelope had been sealed once, then carefully opened.
“You read it?”
“She told me I could if the time came.”
Lawson unfolded the pages.
Genevieve's perfume was long gone.
Her voice was not.
Lawson,
If you're reading this, something happened that I prayed never would. Before you get angry, please understand that I kept Mara from you because I wanted one person I loved to exist completely outside the Mercer world.
Lawson stopped.
His eyes moved farther down.
Genevieve explained the sister she had discovered.
The meetings.
The friendship that followed.
Then something else.
A history of rare blood disorders on their biological mother's side.
Not leukemia itself.
A pattern of immune abnormalities.
Abnormal marrow responses.
Genevieve had quietly undergone genetic counseling after Blythe developed unusual infections as a baby.
The results had not predicted cancer.
But they had frightened her enough that she made a plan.
Lawson read the next lines twice.
Mara volunteered for the national marrow registry years ago. We share enough biological markers that one doctor told me she could someday matter to the children if something terrible happened. I know that sounds vague. Maybe nothing will ever come of it. I hope this letter stays sealed forever.
Lawson looked at Mara.
“You think you're a donor.”
“I think I could be.”
“You think?”
“I haven't been tested against them.”
“Then how do you know they're dying?”
Mara hesitated.
“Odette called me.”
Lawson's expression darkened.
The head housekeeper had worked for Genevieve for twelve years.
“She knew?”
“Some of it. Genevieve left instructions.”
“When?”
“Before the accident.”
Rage briefly replaced grief.
Everyone had secrets.
His dead wife.
His housekeeper.
The stranger standing in his foyer.
Even inside his own fortress, Lawson had apparently been the last man to know.
“Where is Odette?”
“Kitchen,” Prescott replied.
“Get her.”
Odette arrived five minutes later.
She took one look at Mara and closed her eyes.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Mercer.”
“You had instructions from my wife?”
“Yes.”
“For two years?”
“Yes.”
“And never mentioned them?”
“She made me promise.”
“She's dead.”
Odette flinched.
Lawson immediately regretted the cruelty but did not apologize.
Odette drew herself upright.
“She said I was to contact Mara only if the twins developed a serious blood illness.”
Lawson stared.
“When Dr. Yates began discussing marrow failure, I called the number Mrs. Mercer gave me. It had been disconnected.”
Mara nodded.
“I lost my phone.”
“Odette found an old email address,” Prescott said.
Mara continued.
“I saw the message yesterday at the public library.”
“You came from where?”
“Milwaukee.”
“How?”
“Bus.”
Prescott glanced toward her worn shoes.
“You had thirty-seven dollars.”
“I had sixty-two before the ticket.”
For some reason that detail disturbed Lawson.
This woman had spent nearly half the money she possessed getting to his mansion because of a letter written by his dead wife.
“You should have called.”
“I tried. Your security office wouldn't connect me.”
Prescott cleared his throat.
“Our protocols are somewhat aggressive.”
Mara looked at him.
“You threatened to have me arrested.”
“I said potentially arrested.”
“You said dogs.”
“Potential dogs.”
Lawson cut them off.
“If you're lying, I'll know soon.”
“I understand.”
“If Crosby Vane sent you—”
“Who's Crosby Vane?”
Lawson watched her carefully.
Either she was an extraordinary actress or she genuinely did not know.
“Prescott.”
“I'll keep checking.”
Lawson looked at Mara.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Everyone wants something.”
“I want you to test me.”
“And afterward?”
“If I match, let me help them.”
“For what price?”
Her expression hardened for the first time.
“Your wife was my sister.”
“That doesn't answer the question.”
“It does to me.”
Lawson stared.
Mara had thirty-seven dollars.
No home.
No job.
No family except two dying children who did not know she existed.
Yet she had not asked him for a cent.
“Yates will test you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
For the first time since entering the mansion, Mara's shoulders relaxed.
Then a weak sound came from the staircase.
“Daddy?”
Lawson turned.
Jonah stood at the top of the stairs in blue pajamas.
A nurse hovered behind him looking horrified.
The boy should not have been out of bed.
Lawson crossed the foyer quickly.
“What are you doing?”
“I heard people.”
“You're supposed to be resting.”
Jonah looked over his father's shoulder.
His eyes found Mara.
“Who's she?”
The question hung there.
Lawson did not know what to call her.
Applicant.
Stranger.
Secret aunt.
Possible donor.
Mara answered gently.
“My name is Mara.”
Jonah studied her.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“A nurse?”
“Not anymore.”
That caught Lawson's attention.
“You were a nurse?”
“Pediatric aide. Then nursing school. I didn't finish.”
“Why?”
Mara's face clouded.
“Money.”
Jonah considered this.
“Do you know any jokes?”
The question surprised everyone.
Mara smiled.
“A terrible number of them.”
“Blythe likes bad jokes.”
“I do not!” Blythe's voice called weakly from the hallway behind him.
A nurse appeared pushing her wheelchair.
Lawson nearly reprimanded everyone.
Then he saw the twins looking at Mara.
Interested.
Curious.
Alive.
It had been weeks since strangers interested them.
Mara crouched.
“What do you call a bear with no teeth?”
Jonah's brow furrowed.
“What?”
“A gummy bear.”
He groaned.
Blythe laughed.
It was barely a sound.
But it was laughter.
Every adult in the foyer froze.
Lawson had forgotten what that sound did to the house.
Mara glanced up at him.
For one second, neither spoke.
Then Dr. Yates arrived.
Prescott handed him Genevieve's letter.
Ten minutes later, Mara sat in the medical suite while blood filled several testing tubes.
Lawson watched through the glass.
Prescott appeared beside him.
“We found something.”
“What?”
“Vane's scouts weren't watching the south fence.”
Lawson turned.
“What were they watching?”
“Her.”
He nodded toward Mara.
Lawson's entire posture changed.
Prescott held up his phone.
“Traffic camera caught the same vehicle following the bus she arrived on.”
“Coincidence?”
“I don't believe in those anymore.”
Lawson looked through the glass again.
Mara was talking quietly with Blythe while the technician labeled her blood samples.
His dead wife's secret sister had arrived penniless at his gate.
She might be able to save his children.
And somehow Crosby Vane already knew she existed.
Prescott's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed within seconds.
“What?”
Lawson stepped closer.
Prescott lowered the phone.
“The preliminary compatibility test came back.”
Lawson stopped breathing.
“And?”
Prescott looked toward Mara.
“Yates says you need to hear it from him.”
The doctor entered less than a minute later.
He had gone pale.
Lawson could not decide whether that was good or bad.
“Franklin.”
Yates looked from Lawson to Mara.
Then back.
“I need to repeat several tests before I promise anything.”
“Tell me.”
The doctor exhaled.
“Based on the first markers, Mara may be compatible with both children.”
For the first time since anyone had said ten days, Lawson felt something he no longer recognized.
Hope.
And because he was Lawson Mercer, hope immediately terrified him more than despair.
---