Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
On the top shelf of their closet was a flat box that held all their important documents. Ren had seen Gloria open it on occasion, but it always had that Off Limits to Ren feel about it.
That never seemed weird to her until now.
Silently, she slid the box from the shelf, setting it down on the bed. Ears perked, she strained for the sound of footsteps coming toward her but could still hear their voices on the other side of the wall, talking.
Lifting the lid, she peeked inside. The thick stack of papers was so much bigger than she expected, given their small lives. She sifted through the pages, past animal records, her birth certificate, the titles and registrations for various pieces of farm equipment, and then there, deep down in the stack, she stopped on a marriage certificate, with the Fulton County Clerk’s seal.
In search of a date, she pulled the paper free and tilted it to read by the meager light coming from the front porch outside the window. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Just like she’d feared, it was dated eight years before she was born. Could Gloria have married Steve, left him, married Chris Koning, given birth to Ren, left Chris Koning, and remarried Steve? It was possible. But plausible? No. It felt too slippery, too convoluted.
Another detail caught her eye and she had to blink, make sure she was reading the correct line on the document. Because it wasn’t Gloria’s and Steve’s names in front of her. It was a marriage certificate for two people named Adam Zielinski and Deborah DeStefano.
Frantic now, and with the icy tendrils of awareness pushing at her thoughts, she shuffled through the other pages. There was a birth certificate for Gloria under the name Gloria Smith, and one for Steve Gylden, too. Her hands shook as she pushed them aside, digging past registrations, loose pages of equipment warranties, and invoices to where she found two more birth certificates, folded in thirds and faded with age. Carefully opening them, Ren stared at the names there: Adam Zielinski and Deborah DeStefano. And at the very bottom of the box were passports.
Her fingers barely cooperated as she flipped one open, clapping a hand over her mouth when Gloria’s much younger face looked back at her. Just beside the photo was the name Deborah Louise DeStefano. Ren dropped it into the box like she’d been burned and looked around the room in a panic.
All this time she’d been focused on the possibility that Steve wasn’t her father; now she wondered what else they weren’t telling her. Was Deborah her mother’s real name? And if so, why had she changed it to Gloria? Why had Steve changed his from Adam? In one numbing, pulsing heartbeat, Ren suddenly wondered…were either of them her real parents?
She felt boneless, her blood staticky as she fumbled to find the Polaroid and then gave up, straightening the pile to put everything back, just the way she’d found it. With her heart hammering in her throat, she slipped out of their room and the few steps back down to hers, looking there one more time. Her bag was on the floor near the foot of her bed, and she dug into it again, this time dumping everything out and tossing it to the floor—her T-shirt and sleep shorts, the book of monuments Edward got her, the gift card and the watch from the Screaming Eagle. But the Polaroid was gone.
“Looking for this?”
She jerked around to find Gloria in the doorway, the photo of Edward in her hand.
“Gloria,” she said quietly. “What are you doing with that?”
Gloria stared at her for a beat, then stepped into Ren’s room and sat on the bed. “It’s our little insurance policy.”
Dread sent a shiver through her, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She needed to leave. She might not know all the details, but every cell in her body screamed that she needed to get away. Anywhere. “Insurance policy?”
“We’re going to move and start over. You’re not going to try to find Christopher Koning. You’re never going to mention that name again.”
“Are you even—”
“And if you do,” Gloria cut in, waving the photo, “I’m going to send this everywhere and tell the administration at that school how this boy abducted you and took you across this country. How he abused you.”
“That—that’s insane,” Ren stammered, hysteria bubbling up in her throat. “That didn’t happen. I’ll just tell them you’re lying.”
Gloria’s face softened. “Oh, honey, then I’ll tell them it’s just the trauma talking,” she said with saccharine sweetness, the concerned- mother mask slipping into place. “‘Oh, we are so worried about Ren. All those specialists we took her to told us that she might want to protect him. We told her not to worry. She’s safe now. We won’t ever let him touch her again.’”