Chapter 4 - POPPY’S SECRETRaven Hill had twenty-three bedrooms.
Poppy chose the smallest.
“It feels less haunted,” she signed.
I laughed for the first time in two days.
Ronan didn’t.
He stood in the doorway holding a stuffed rabbit his housekeeper had found in storage.
Poppy accepted it solemnly.
Then she hugged him.
Ronan froze.
His arms remained at his sides.
Poppy waited.
Finally, he placed one hand awkwardly against her back.
I looked away before he caught me smiling.
The next morning, Evelyn insisted on breakfast downstairs.
It was the first time she had entered the main dining room in nearly a year.
Silas was already there.
His smile vanished when he saw her.
Poppy sat beside Evelyn and began signing.
Evelyn answered.
Within minutes they were laughing silently.
Ronan watched them from the opposite end of the table.
“You’re staring,” I whispered.
“I’ve forgotten what she looks like happy.”
That sentence told me more about him than any investigation could.
Later, Poppy found something no adult had noticed.
She was playing beneath Evelyn’s old writing desk when she tapped my leg.
“There’s scratching.”
She pointed underneath.
Three falcons had been carved into the wood.
Beside them were numbers.
Ronan stared.
“Gabriel used to hide things with number sequences.”
“What do they mean?”
“Book positions.”
The library contained thousands of volumes.
But Evelyn knew immediately.
Shelf seventeen.
Fourth book.
Page twenty-three.
Inside an old copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, we found a photograph.
Gabriel.
Ronan.
Silas.
And a fourth man I didn’t recognize.
On the back Gabriel had written:
THE ONE WHO BETRAYS YOU WILL BE THE ONE YOU CALL FAMILY.
Ronan identified the fourth man as Marcus Vale, his father’s former attorney.
Marcus had disappeared three weeks after Gabriel died.
“Silas said Marcus stole from the family,” Ronan explained.
“Did you verify it?”
“I trusted my uncle.”
“Gabriel didn’t.”
His jaw tightened.
Neither of us said what that meant.
That afternoon, I finally told Ronan everything about Gabriel’s death.
Gabriel had arrived at St. Vincent’s already wounded.
He refused police.
Refused anesthesia.
Refused to call home.
“He thought your phones were compromised.”
I handed Ronan a folded piece of paper.
I had written down every sign Gabriel made before dying.
Ronan read it twice.
Then a third time.
“Why keep this from us?”
“Because Gabriel made me promise.”
“Why you?”
I looked at my tattoo.
“Because he gave me this.”
Ronan frowned.
“He tattooed you?”
“No.”
I rolled my sleeve higher.
The falcon wasn’t decorative.
Inside its wings were tiny numbers.
Coordinates.
Ronan stared.
“Gabriel told me there was a man outside the hospital watching. He said if they searched me, they’d take anything physical. So he made me memorize coordinates.”
“You tattooed them afterward.”
“So I’d never forget.”
“Where do they lead?”
“I never checked.”
“Why?”
“Because two men followed me home the next night.”
Ronan went still.
“I had a four-month-old baby.”
His gaze softened.
“You chose Poppy.”
“Every time.”
He looked at the coordinates.
“We go tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“I’m coming. I mean Poppy stays here.”
“With my mother.”
Evelyn, sitting near the window, signed without looking at us.
“I will protect the little falcon.”
Ronan stared at her.
“Little falcon?”
Evelyn smiled.
Then she signed something else.
Ronan’s face changed.
“What?”
He wouldn’t translate.
So Evelyn repeated it to me.
“Gabriel would have loved her.”
A strange sadness moved through me.
Ronan noticed.
His eyes narrowed.
“Mara.”
I looked away.
“What?”
“How old is Poppy?”
The room seemed to lose oxygen.
“Six.”
“When is her birthday?”
“Ronan.”
“When?”
I stood.
“That has nothing to do with Gabriel.”
His expression became unreadable.
I had expected this question for four years.
Because Poppy had Gabriel’s dark eyes.
Because I had known Gabriel before that hospital night.
Because the story I had told Ronan was true—
but incomplete.
Gabriel Cain had not been a stranger who stumbled into my emergency room.
He had been the man who secretly visited me for eleven months.
The man who held Poppy once when she was an infant.
The man who told me he had dangerous work left to finish before he could acknowledge her publicly.
The man who died believing he had protected us.
Ronan looked toward the hallway where Poppy had disappeared.
Then back at me.
His voice was almost inaudible.
“Mara.”
May you like
I closed my eyes.
“Poppy is Gabriel’s daughter.”
Related Stories
