Chapter 17: Ask Him Who Was Driving

Gordon held his press conference at ten the next morning on the front steps of the Hollister Grand.

He stood at a lectern with the hotel's gold doors behind him, wearing a black tie.

His lawyers lined up on either side of him.

Adele stood one step down from him in a gray dress, with her hands folded.

Camille was nowhere.

Ronan and I stopped at the bottom of the steps among the reporters.

Nobody told us to leave.

Gordon wanted us there.

"I come before you with a heavy heart," Gordon said, and the cameras lifted.

"Six weeks ago my wife and I were told that a young woman from an orphanage might be our long-lost child. We opened our home to her."

He paused to let his voice shake.

"We have now received a second laboratory report from a certified lab."

He held up a sheet of paper.

"It says Gill Hartigan is not our daughter."

The reporters began shouting at once.

"Miss Hartigan!" one of them called. "Are you a fraud?"

"I'm the only person on these steps who isn't lying," I said.

"Mr. Hollister, what about the banquet?" another called. "Did she lie to three hundred guests?"

"She was misled, perhaps," Gordon said, with terrible gentleness. "Perhaps by the people around her.

"Perhaps by a man who stands to gain two hundred million dollars from a contract that names a daughter who does not exist."

Ronan didn't move.

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