Page 33 of Destined Chaos
“Too late.” I chuckled and rested on his arm that circled me, drawing me closer. “So, tell me about your call.”
“I checked in with Clark to see what’s going on with the skeletons in your basement.”
“And?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“There’s a problem.”
I closed my eyes, knowing I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “What kind of problem?”
“Well, see, here’s the thing. I was going to let him tell you, but I don’t want you to be blindsided.”
“Just spill it already.”
Hugh remained momentarily quiet as if debating what words to use to soften the blow.
“How much do you know about your grandfather?”
I leaned up on my elbow to stare into his eyes.
“Hugh, just tell me. I barely knew Joseph, and the memories I have of him stop at the age of five.”
“Clark’s forensic people found an artifact in the wall. An old leather-bound book that was wrapped in plastic and hidden inside a trunk-sized box.”
“Okay, so the guy kept a diary?” I asked.
“The first page has your grandfather’s name, which wouldn’t be so bad if the box didn’t also contain toddler-sized bones.”
My mouth parted, and words escaped me. Had my mother had a brother or sister that had died? If she had, she hadn’t told me.
I laid my head back down on Hugh’s arm. “Mom only ever had the one sister that I knew about.”
“Dinky’s mom?”
I nodded without answering.
“Does the book say who those bones belong to?”
Hugh stroked my hair. “Yeah, and it’s not a missing aunt. The book says the bones belong to your older sister.”
I jolted into an upright position and stared down at him again. “I’ve never had a sister.”
“It gets worse.”
“Of course, it does.”
“There’s a birth certificate. Your mom is listed on it as the mother, and the father is listed as a man who worked as a gardener for your grandfather. He went missing about the same time your mom ran. Clark believes he’s the one in the wall. Fabric from the uniform he was last reported seen in was tattered and in pieces near those bones.”
“You don’t think it was an accident.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
I rested my head against his arm again.
“Clark is now viewing your basement as a crime scene, but I did talk him into letting the water heater guy in to install that, so you’ll have running water when you return. You just won’t be allowed in the basement for a while.”
I stared up at the ceiling, trying to process what he’d just said. I had a dead sister. It was too hard to imagine. My mother had never spoken about losing a child, even though there was always a sadness in her eyes. I’d thought it was from leaving home and taking me with her, and even before that, I’d imagined that it was from my dad dying in a war. Could it have really been something else?
“Clark is going to want to run DNA,” Hugh said, breaking into my thoughts.
