I lead Nate to the Victorian bookcase and show him the embedded latch on the side of it. He pushes it, and the side wall pops out at the bottom, revealing a small safe.
“Do you know the combination?” he asks.
“Yes.” I turn the dial and open the safe.
Inside is the deed to the house and the store, still in Virginia Bay’s name. I wonder briefly if I’ll be able to get the name changed to mine, given that the real Virginia is living on an island somewhere. Though I’d spoken briefly to a lawyer before I moved in order to get access to the bank account and life insurance proceeds, I hadn’t gotten around to trying to change any of the property into my name. Aside from the deeds, a passport, and some other legal documents, there is nothing of interest in the safe.
“There has to be something else,” Nate says as he shuffles through the documents again.
“There are some other hidden places in this bookcase,” I say. “That’s the only one with a safe, though.”
I open up a few other little compartments, but again, we find nothing significant. Nate pulls out the note we found in the shop and reads it again.
“It says ‘Victorians weren’t all about safety.’ I guess I should have figured it wouldn’t be in the safe, but where? What’s on the opposite side of the safe?”
“That section doesn’t open,” I say. “Only the left side hides a safe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well…I guess not.” I feel around on the right side of the bookcase, looking for a similar latch. “This era of furniture was kind of infamous for having a lot of secret places. The opening mechanism could be anywhere, assuming it’s there at all.”
“Can’t we just
grab an axe and smash through it?”
“Don’t you dare!” I glare at him. “I love this bookcase.”
“Fine.” Nate huffs out a breath. “Where else could the latch be hidden?”
“Maybe inside one of the other hidden areas,” I say. “I think I’ve looked everywhere else.”
I feel around inside the safe, around the safe, and along the bottom of the bookshelf. Nate takes the top, since he’s taller, and pokes around in all the compartments up there. Finally, in the back of another hidden drawer, I find a small latch. When I hit it, I hear a click down by my feet, and the right-side panel opens slightly.
“There we are!” Nate pulls the door open and peers inside. “There’s something way in there, but I can’t quite reach it.”
I get out of the way as he leans down and reaches into the back of the space. I hear a slight scraping noise, and then Nate pulls his hand back out, revealing yet another envelope. This one is bigger than the others we’ve found and sealed with tape. Nate runs his finger over the back of it, ripping open the seal, and then pulls out a single, folded piece of thin paper.
As he unfolds the small, rectangular document, I see the wording at the top, stating the document is from the Ohio Department of Health and Division of Vital Statistics. I see the State of Ohio seal at the bottom of it and then the spaces for the mother and father’s names. I see the birthdate, the county, the weight and length. All the information is filled out on the single piece of paper.
My throat tightens up. I can’t seem to draw a breath. I barely hear Nate’s faint voice as he reads the name aloud.
“That…that can’t be right,” I finally manage to say. “This must be a forgery, too.”
“It’s not.” Nate coughs, clears his throat, and stares down at the paper again. “This is the actual, original birth certificate with the state seal, not a copy. Copies can be forged but not this. It should be in the vital statistics office, but clearly it was stolen from there. This is real. No doubt.”
“But…but that means…”
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” Nate whispers. He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “You even look like her. I should have realized…”
“No. No, Nate, it can’t be.”
“It is.” Without making eye contact, he offers me the paper with a shaky hand. He lets out a long, labored breath. “You are not a member of the Ramsay family. You were born in Ohio, and your birth parents are Carlo and Rosa.”
I read through the whole thing, and my hands start to shake as well. Nate speaks slowly and deliberately.
“Your real name is Cherice Angelica Orso.”
Chapter 22—Family Dynamics