I suck in a breath, and as I scan over the first few pieces of paper, I realize that this is every little bit of dirt that my father was able to put together on the Harding family.
My gaze quickly shifts back to the row of folders with excitement. If there’s this much dirt in here, I can only imagine what else I’ll find in the other folders. It’s like hitting the jackpot.
Why the hell didn’t I take Tobias’ advice and come storming through here earlier?
Wanting to focus, I drop my gaze and start scanning through the papers, and within the first few minutes, I’ve determined that Michael Harding and his father before him were both pieces of shit. Michael has had many affairs, many overnight stays at hotel rooms with prostitutes, money laundering, and dirty deals. His father was just as bad.
I flick through the papers until I find an old image, and my face instantly scrunches up as I find Michael Harding staring back at me. He must only be in his early twenties here, but what stops me is the heavily pregnant woman standing right beside him and looking up at him as though he holds the whole world in his hands.
London Ravenwood. They were having an affair.
Oh fuck. If that’s me she’s pregnant with, could I technically be Harding’s kid?
My heart starts to race as I pick up the old photograph and lean back in my father’s chair, looking over the woman who looks so much like me. How is it possible that my mother is such an awful person? I should have known that I couldn’t be so lucky.
It was luck finding out who my parents were but finding out that my mother is a psychotic murderer—that’s just typical. Now finding out that she was screwing none other than Michael Harding … well, that just makes me sick. I guess it could be worse. She could have been screwing Matthew Montgomery, or Preston Scardoni.
Just as I go to put the image back down, the light from the small lamp hits the back of the image, and for a slight second, I see writing on the back.
I slam the photograph down and hastily flip it over, seeing my father’s handwriting, something I’ve become accustomed to over the past few months.
I adjust the lamp, needing to see it clearer as I scan over the words. ‘Paris Moustaff & Michael Harding affair.’
Paris Moustaff? Who the fuck is Paris?
I flip the photograph back over and look a little closer as I shake my head. This is my mother. This is London, not some woman named Paris.
My heart begins to race, hating the confusion that circles my mind.
I grab the photo frame of my mother and father with me cradled in my mother’s arms from beside the old computer and put the photos side by side.
They look exactly the same, but when I look a little closer, there’s a small freckle on the woman who cradles me, which isn’t on the woman smiling at Michael. Their teeth are different, the shape of their faces, the way they part their hair.
Holy fuck.
They’re twins.
How the hell didn’t I know this?
Michael Harding was having an affair with my mother’s twin sister, which means there’s a possibility that the woman who’s been coming after me now, the woman living in my parents’ mountain escape, and the woman who held a knife to my throat, isn’t my mother at all, but her sister, and thank fuck, I’m not Harding’s secret love child.
We’ve been going after the wrong woman all this time. Perhaps there’s a chance that my mother isn’t actually a psychotic killer after all.
My mind races with questions, and without even thinking, I grab the photo and walk right out my father’s office and fly through the front door.
CHAPTER 21
The midnight chill seeps into my bones, but I push myself forward, too many questions desperate for answers that I can’t possibly stop now.
My mother has a twin.
Paris and London Moustaff.
Fuck me, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone ever wishing their aunty was a murderer, but damnnnnn, I do. Because if Paris is a murderer, then that means that my mother isn’t. Well, technically I guess I don’t know if my mother was or wasn’t. I have no way of knowing what she did while she was alive, but assuming that she was as great as everyone else around here believes, then yeah, I’d say she’s as clean as they come.
With every step I take, my head whirls with untold truths, mysteries, and possibilities, while also sinking with fear. What if I’m wrong? What if Paris really is out there somewhere and London is too? What if it’s been my mother all along and she really does hate me enough to kill me. What if they’re working together?