Severed Mother-Daughter Ties novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Stairwell

I got out of the car and shut the door behind me.

"Not here," I said. "There are cameras on this level."

Wylie looked at the ceiling, then at the stairwell door.

He held it open for me.

The stairwell smelled of cold concrete and old rain, and our footsteps echoed down five flights.

I stopped on the landing and turned to face him.

"A girl who needed a different name," I said. "That's who I was before."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one you're getting."

"My stepmother runs a foundation that has paid for forty-one DNA tests," Wylie said. "I've signed for every one. Do you know what they have in common?"

"No."

"Every woman had a good reason she couldn't tell me where she came from."

"I'm not asking you for money."

"Not yet."

"I don't want a cent from your family."

"Number twelve said that." His jaw worked. "She sat with Lacey for a month. She taught her to braid. She cried when she left, and my father's accountant found out later that she'd taken eighty thousand dollars."

"Lacey was fourteen. She asked about her for a year."

I let that sit between us for a moment.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That's a rotten thing to do to a child."

"Then you understand why I'm asking."

"I do. I still can't give you what you want."

I turned to go up the stairs, and he caught my wrist.

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