Page 35 of To the Grave

Eleanor.Nory.

My mom and Mac.

Because in the days since my head had cleared, a question had been nagging at the back of my mind, something that had gotten lost in my depression after Jace’s (faked) death.

A question I hadn’t dared ask anyone.

When exactly had my mom and Mac been lovers? And had it been around the time I’d been born?

Chapter 26

Daisy

The question was still there the next day as I rode up to the resort with Gray and the design team. It was like a toothache, a dull throb at the base of my brain that never quite disappeared.

Was Mac my biological father?

The possibility was like a catastrophic earthquake at the core of my identity: maybe I wasn’t a Hammond after all.

I knew Charles Hammond was listed as my father on my birth certificate, but that didn’t mean anything. If it was a lie, everything I thought I’d known about myself — about my history — was a lie.

I felt prickly and anxious when I thought about it, my head buzzing, face flushed, pulse racing like I was on the verge of a panic attack.

I pushed it aside to think about later and tried to concentrate on the drive up the mountain, the symphony of color on the other side of the window. Olivia was driving the Mercedes, chatting with Lauren, one of the junior designers, about a newcarpenter she’d found farther upstate, while Gray texted next to me in the back seat.

We hadn’t had a confrontation since the one we‘d had in the break room when he’d mentioned Ruth, and I was relieved that his interest in my sister seemed to have waned, at least for the time being.

Twenty minutes after leaving town we arrived at the building site and piled out of the car. At the top of the site, the main building was under construction, a crew of workers guiding a crane holding a large metal beam onto the fourth floor. I was shocked by the progress they’d made since the last time I’d visited the site. The main building was designed to be only four stories high, more expansive than tall, an attempt to make it look like it belonged in the surrounding mountains rather than like it was competing with them. That meant they were almost done with the framing of the whole building.

When Piers had first slated the resort to open in the spring, I hadn’t believed it was possible, but I also hadn’t counted on Piers having three crews working around the clock to make it happen.

“Let’s see how they’re doing on the villas,” Olivia said, handing me and Gray a hard hat that matched the ones carried by her and Lauren.

We started down a sun-dappled path leading into the woods. The villas were intentionally nestled in the surrounding forest on a series of sites handpicked for their views and far enough away from the main building that the rich people buying them wouldn’t have to interact with the plebeians at the main resort.

Once the resort was complete, the path leading to the private villas would be quiet and serene, but right now the sound of multiple construction sites — the ones at the main resort and the ones at the villas — echoed through the trees. Somewhere in the distance hammers hit wood and men called to one another.

It made me a little sad to know that the pristine woods surrounding Blackwell Falls would be marred with the new resort. There were still thousands of acres of woods in the Blackwell Preserve, but now that the construction crews were at work, I didn’t love the idea of the resort taking up space on the mountain.

Maybe it was living in the old house at the top of the falls instead of in the climate-controlled mansion where I’d grown up, but I felt more connected to the land now. I’d watched the snow melt around the house, had seen the icicles that hung from the falls in winter disappear as spring took hold. I’d watched the trees bud and then bloom, had heard the crickets return in summer, watched the long grass at the back of the house sparkle with summer fireflies.

I’d lain on the ground in the cemetery and looked through the changing leaves while I’d thought about Jace.

The fucker.

The first villa was a good half mile from the main resort, but I didn’t mind the walk. It felt good to be outside instead of in the office. Up ahead, Olivia led the way while Gray made small talk with Lauren.

Fine with me. As far as I was concerned, the less interaction I had with Gray the better.

We were almost to the first villa when we passed a construction worker carrying a bucket loaded with stone. He gave us a nod and kept walking toward the main site while we continued down the recently made path.

“Hats on,” Olivia said. “It’s for the insurance.”

I put my hard hat on just in time to break through the trees and onto one of the villa sites. As with the main building, I was shocked by how quickly it was coming together. These were one-story dwellings, much smaller than the main resort, and the framing on this one was complete, the roof already on.

“Wow,” I said. “They got this up fast.”

“Right?” Olivia said as we walked toward the building. “It’s always nice to work on a project where there’s enough money to keep things moving, although it does present other issues. I’m still worried about getting the tile from Italy in time.”

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