The Lost Sister. Megan Kelley Hall
her unconscious and drowning her as dawn broke over the harbor. In that eerie half-light between day and night, Cordelia considered her fate for just a moment. It would be so easy just to take one step forward and let all of the pain and betrayal stay behind her forever, wipe it all into oblivion.
She delicately raised one leg in front of her, pointing her toe in an arabesque pose. Teetering for a moment, Cordelia felt the thrill rush through her body as she considered what it would be like to just let everything drop away: all the pain, all the confusion, all the heartbreak. She would be with her father—her real father, the one who raised her and who died too early, not the biological father that she had only just learned about, Malcolm Crane, the man who made Cordelia and Maddie sisters by cheating on his wife, Abigail, with her own sister—Cordelia’s mother. She could be lulled into an everlasting sleep underneath the gentle waves and wouldn’t have to deal with the betrayal by Maddie, by Abigail, or—more importantly—by her own mother, Rebecca. Cordelia closed her eyes and imagined the salty waves reaching up to her and caressing her skin, pulling at the strands of her hair, coaxing her forward. She started to hum as her body swayed back and forth, keeping time with the rhythmic lapping of the waves. It would be so easy, she thought again. Who would really care?
Just as she started to sway forward, a large gust of wind knocked her off balance, sending her tumbling into the wide fissures of the craggy rock. The pain that shot up her back and down her legs woke her from the dreamlike trance she’d been in. Horrified at how close she was to doing something tragic, Cordelia scurried down the rock, away from the dangerous whispers of the sea—the calls that tried to lure her into an everlasting swim.
She had to leave this moment. She could almost hear Tess—her wise and thoughtful grandmother—whispering in her ear that it was time for her to go. She was desperate to say good-bye to the old woman whom she’d grown to love so much in her short time in this town, but she knew that if she stayed, she might be unable to resist the temptation to let it all slip away.
Chapter 1
JUDGMENT
The card signals great transformation, renewal, change, rebirth, resurrection, making a final decision. You cannot hide any longer, face what you have to face, make that decision. Change. Time to summon the past, forgive it, and let it go, begin to heal.
Dear Diary,
If it weren’t for the little baby boy with the Coke-bottle glasses, I would have killed my father by now. The poison would be seeping into his veins effortlessly with every sip of the herbal tea concoction that I made especially for him. But the moment I saw that little boy, my stepbrother…half brother…whatever—I couldn’t do it. It’s not because I want Malcolm Crane to live, not after what he’s done to me and the lives of all the women in my family, but because he has another life dependent on him: the life of an innocent little boy. And so, for that reason, I’ll let him live.
For now .
No one knows me here. Even those I’ve left behind in Hawthorne couldn’t recognize me now. Besides, no one would ever think to look for me up in the boondocks of Maine. My hair, once a brilliant shade of red, my most striking feature, has been dulled to a mousy brown, courtesy of a sable-brown henna .
I often wonder if anyone has even noticed that I’m gone, not that I really care. Everyone I trusted, everyone I loved has lied to me or let me down. I’ve always felt like I was on my own. Now I know that to be true .
All I know is that I have to get back home to California where I belong, and find some way to make it back there by myself. But first things first. Someone needs to be taught a lesson. And I’m not leaving until everything—and everyone—has been taken care of .
“One cup of passion fruit-lime green tea,” Cordelia said softly to the man behind the newspaper. She poured the tea carefully, watching the leaves swirl in the bottom of the cup. Rebecca had taught her to read the messages in the leaves, not only once the cup was finished, but also as they swirled into the delicate teacup. She tried not to read the warning in the leaves. Once you knew where to look for certain signs, it was hard not to see them in everything. And she could read this message as clear as day: Kill him .
She looked at the little boy sitting across from his father. He peered up at her face, which was half hidden behind her long sheath of brown hair. She winked at him, causing him to erupt into giggles. He couldn’t be more than three or four. Cordelia wondered where his mother was, who his mother was. What would become of this little boy if she went ahead with her plan: to pay Malcolm Crane back for all of his wrongdoings? For deserting Maddie and Abigail, for impregnating her mother and never taking responsibility for any of his children back in Hawthorne, Massachusetts, and then simply running off to Maine to start all over again. Cordelia wondered if he would desert this little boy as well. Maybe she would be doing him a favor by stopping Malcolm Crane—the father she’d only known of for a very short time—from hurting anyone ever again.
“And for the little man?” she asked quietly. She waited for a glance from the man she now knew to be her father. The man that up until only a few minutes ago she had planned on killing in cold blood.
After leaving Hawthorne, she quickly made her way up to Maine where she knew that Malcolm had been living for more than a decade. Once she found him—which wasn’t the hardest thing to do, since he was known for being not only the town drunk, but also one of the professors in the tiny community college—she shadowed his every move. She knew about all of the girls that he was sleeping with—students, assistant professors, barmaids. This was something that she was able to figure out very quickly. She crept into the back of his lectures, studying the man that was her biological father.
She noticed some similarities in their appearance. Although everyone always said that she was an exact replica of her mother—the fair, porcelain skin, the copper hair, the delicate features—she detected some traits that she inherited from her father. The husky, butterscotch voice, the intense, lavender-blue eyes, the lean, athletic build. These were all things that she—as well as many of the dreamy-eyed girls in his classroom—noticed right away. The only two places that he frequented besides his lecture halls and his home were the town pub and the coffee and tea shop across from the college.
She had watched Malcolm Crane in between his classes. She’d managed to get a job at the Maine Tea and Coffee Bean—the only place he frequented during the week—and served him almost daily, but he never showed any sign of recognition. He was flirtatious and friendly, but it was all on the surface. She truly believed that if there was anything good in him, he would recognize his own daughter. But then, sadly, he probably wouldn’t even recognize Maddie and he had watched his little girl grow up and knew her to be his own. But even that didn’t give him reason enough to stick around in Hawthorne, to stay with his wife and young daughter.
Everything that Cordelia had done up until this point had been meticulously planned. She had taken the rat poison from the storage room—there were so many boxes, she was sure that no one would miss it. By the time anyone realized that Malcolm Crane had been murdered, she would be long gone. They didn’t even know her real name. Over the past few months, she’d made sure not to leave a mark. She lived like a ghost among mortals. She felt like she had died that night out on Misery Island and could only be brought back to life once she’d exacted her revenge. And the first one on her list was Malcolm Crane. But then this little boy had to come along and change everything.
“Danny, you heard the lady, did you want something to drink?” The little boy looked up and smiled at her and the toothy grin broke her heart.
“Milk, please,” he lisped.
“Sure, right…milk,” she stammered, backing away from the counter, feeling the rat poison burning in her apron pocket. She couldn’t do it. Not with this little boy. No matter how much she blamed Malcolm Crane for everything that had gone wrong in her life up until this point—the lies from Rebecca, the return to Hawthorne, even the death of the man she believed to be her real father up until a few months ago, even though deep down she knew he had nothing to do with Simon LeClaire’s death—she couldn’t make this little boy, Daniel Crane,