Chapter 4: The Man in Connecticut
Sebastian found Harlan in four days.
I knew because he called me on a Tuesday evening, just after I had put the children to bed.
I was standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea going cold on the counter when my phone lit up with a number I had saved under a name I still wasn't sure how to feel about.
I answered.
"He's in Westport," Sebastian said.
"A house on the water.
My grandfather bought it for him outright in the month after he retired."
"Did you speak to him?"
"Not yet.
I wanted to tell you first." A pause.
"I also want you there when I do."
I set the tea down.
"Why?"
"Because he lied to your face.
You deserve to hear him answer for it in person."
I thought about it for longer than I should have.
"When?" I asked.
"Thursday.
I'll send a car."
"I'll take my own car."
Another pause.
"All right."
My sister Diane came to stay with the children.
She asked no questions, which was either a sign of great love or great self-control.
Probably both.
I drove to Westport on a gray October morning with the radio off and both hands on the wheel.
Sebastian was already parked outside when I arrived.
He was standing beside a black car, no security team visible, wearing a dark coat with his hands in his pockets.
He looked like a man who had not slept well in four days.
He straightened when he saw me.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
"Don't thank me yet."
Harlan's house was a white colonial set back from the road with a view of the water.
The garden was well-kept.
There were bird feeders along the porch railing.
The whole property had the careful, quiet look of a retirement paid for by someone else's guilt.
Sebastian knocked.
The door opened after a long moment.
Harlan was older than I remembered.
Heavier.
His hair had gone fully white.
He was wearing a cardigan and holding a coffee mug, and when he saw Sebastian his face did something complicated that it failed to hide in time.
Then he saw me.
The mug lowered.
"Mr.
Vale," he said.
His voice was steady.
Practiced.
"This is unexpected."
"I imagine it is." Sebastian's tone was perfectly civil.
"May we come in?"
Harlan looked at me for another second.
Then he stepped back from the door.
The living room was warm and ordinary.
Bookshelves.
A television.
A photograph on the mantle of a woman I assumed was his wife.
He did not offer us coffee.
Sebastian sat.
I remained standing.
"I'll be direct," Sebastian said.
"Four years ago, a woman came to Vale Tower.
She was pregnant.
She was carrying my children.
She spoke to you in the lobby." He paused.
"You told her I had received her letters.
You told her the head of the Vale family wanted nothing to do with her or the babies.
You used that exact phrase."
Harlan said nothing.
"My grandfather was present," Sebastian continued.
"There is a photograph."
Harlan's hand tightened around the mug.
"I was following instructions," he said.
"Whose?"
The old man looked at the window.
The water was visible through the glass, flat and gray under the October sky.
"You know whose," he said.
"I want you to say it."
Harlan set the mug down on the side table.
His hand was not entirely steady.
"Edmund Vale," he said.
"Your grandfather gave me specific instructions.
The woman was to be turned away.
She was to be told that the family had been informed and wanted no further contact.
She was to believe—" He stopped.
"She was to believe it came from me," Sebastian said.
"Yes."
I had known it was coming.
I had known since the park.
But hearing it spoken out loud in that warm, ordinary room by a man in a cardigan still landed somewhere in my chest like something physical.
"The letters," I said.
My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"What happened to the letters I sent?"
Harlan looked at me for the first time since we had sat down.
"They were collected before they reached Mr.
Vale's correspondence.
All of them.
Your calls were routed to a number that was monitored and then disconnected." He paused.
"I want you to know that I—"
"Don't," I said.
He closed his mouth.
"Don't tell me what you want me to know," I said.
"Tell me where the letters are."
Something moved behind his eyes.
"Edmund kept them," he said quietly.
"He kept everything."
Sebastian went very still.
"Where?" he asked.
"His private study.
At the estate." Harlan looked at his hands.
"He never destroyed them.
I always thought that was strange.
A man who wanted something buried, keeping the evidence in a locked drawer." He paused.
"Maybe he kept them to remind himself what he'd done.
Maybe he kept them for another reason.
I don't know.
But they were there the last time I was at the estate.
That was six months before he passed."
The room was very quiet.
Sebastian looked at me.
Edmund Vale had been dead for eleven months.
Which meant the estate — and everything in it — had passed to Sebastian.
Which meant the letters were still there.
"I need to make a call," Sebastian said.
He stood up.
His voice was controlled, but his jaw was tight in a way I recognized from the park.
"Harlan." He looked at the old man.
"I'll need a formal written statement.
My legal team will contact you."
Harlan nodded.
He looked diminished somehow.
Smaller than when he had opened the door.
Sebastian walked out to the porch to make his call.
I stood in the middle of the living room and looked at the photograph on the mantle.
The woman in it was smiling.
She looked kind.
"Did she know?" I asked.
"Your wife."
Harlan was quiet for a moment.
"No," he said.
"She didn't know."
I picked up my bag.
"The house your grandfather bought you," I said.
"The pension.
The retirement." I looked at him.
"Was it worth it?"
He didn't answer.
I walked out to find Sebastian.
He was standing on the porch with his phone at his side, looking at the water.
He turned when he heard the door.
"My estate manager is pulling access to the study right now," he said.
"We can go to the estate today if you're willing."
I looked at him.
"Sebastian," I said.
"If those letters are there—"
"They're there."
"If they are," I said carefully, "then your grandfather didn't just keep us apart.
He let you believe something false about me for four years.
He let me raise three children alone.
He let our marriage die on a lie he manufactured and paid someone to deliver." I paused.
"And he's been dead for eleven months."
Sebastian looked at me steadily.
"I know," he said.
"So whatever we find in that study — there's no one left to face consequences.
There's no confrontation.
There's no moment where he has to look at what he did."
"No," Sebastian said.
"There isn't."
The water moved behind him.
A bird landed on the railing and then lifted away.
"But there's still the truth," he said.
"And there are still three children who deserve to know who their father is."
I looked at him for a long moment.
May you like
Then I walked to my car.
"I'll follow you," I said.
