Chapter 1 - The Faces I Couldn't Explain
Thirty-five minutes earlier, I had believed a delayed flight was the worst thing that could happen to me that morning.
By noon, I would understand that the delay had probably saved what remained of my family.
I was forty-four years old, CEO of Hawthorne Resorts, and the kind of man who scheduled his life in fifteen-minute blocks. My company owned luxury properties in Miami, Key West, Nashville, and Salt Lake City. That morning, I was supposed to fly from Minneapolis to Baltimore to finalize the acquisition of a historic waterfront estate.
The deal was worth more money than my father had earned during the first twenty years of his career.
My board had spent eleven months negotiating it.
And I was about to walk away from it because of a woman sleeping beside a battered blue suitcase.
The departure board had turned red at 8:17 a.m.
MECHANICAL DELAY.
I had immediately called my CFO, Martin Keller.
“Start without me if necessary,” I told him. “Keep Calder’s attorneys in the room. I’ll get there.”
Then I moved away from the crowded gate to find somewhere quiet enough to review the final financial projections.
That was when I saw her.
At first, she was simply another exhausted traveler.
A woman in a gray hoodie sat slumped against a row of airport seats near the windows. Her hair was loosely tied behind her head. A faded blanket covered part of her lap.
Two little boys slept beside her.
One hugged a beige teddy bear.
The other had his fingers wrapped around the handle of a scratched blue suitcase.
Then the woman stirred.
Half asleep, she brushed a strand of hair behind her right ear.
My body stopped before my mind understood why.
Rosalind.
Six years.
Six years since I had returned from Europe and found her apartment empty.
Six years since her phone number stopped working.
Six years since every letter I sent came back.
Six years since my mother told me the woman I intended to marry had decided she wanted nothing more to do with me.
I stared at her.
She was thinner.
Older.
Exhausted.
But she was Rosalind Mercer.
The woman I had once planned to ask to marry me.
I remembered our first meeting at a charity gala she had organized for the Hawthorne Foundation. She had corrected me in front of three board members because I had mistakenly thanked the wrong sponsor.
“You could have waited until afterward,” I told her.
“You could have read the program,” she replied.
I fell in love with her almost immediately.
My mother did not.
Genevieve Hawthorne believed affection was pleasant but pedigree was permanent.
“Rosalind is charming,” she once told me over dinner.
“That sounds like a compliment.”
“It isn't.”
I had ignored her.
Or at least I thought I had.
Then I left for three weeks to oversee a hotel opening overseas.
When I returned, Rosalind was gone.
My mother claimed Rosalind had come to the family home while I was away.
“She asked us to let her disappear quietly,” Genevieve said.
I wanted to find Rosalind.
For months, I tried.
Eventually anger replaced desperation.
Pride replaced grief.
Work replaced everything else.
Until Terminal 2.
One of the sleeping boys moved.
His eyes opened.
And my heart seemed to forget how to beat.
He had dark wavy hair.
My hair.
His chin had the same shape mine had at that age. But what made my knees nearly give out was the tiny notch cutting through his left eyebrow.
I had one too.
My father had possessed the same mark.
The boy stared at me.
Then Rosalind opened her eyes.
For one second she looked confused.
Then she recognized me.
Her face went white.
She grabbed both children and pulled them closer.
“Rosalind?”
Her lips parted.
“It can't be.”
I stepped closer.
“I've been saying that to myself for six years.”
Her eyes filled.
She looked toward the children.
Then back at me.
I suddenly couldn't breathe.
“How old are they?”
She said nothing.
“Rosalind.”
“Five.”
The word hit me harder than any accusation could have.
I crouched.
“Five?”
The boy with the teddy bear woke and pressed himself against his mother.
Rosalind kissed his forehead.
“It’s okay, Oliver.”
Oliver.
The other child sat up.
“And him?”
“Elliot.”
My phone began vibrating.
MARTIN KELLER.
The Baltimore deal.
I ignored it.
“Are they mine?”
Rosalind closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, tears were sliding down her cheeks.
“I tried to tell you.”
My phone rang again.
I rejected the call.
“What does that mean?”
Rosalind looked around the terminal as if she feared someone might be watching.
Then she whispered something that changed the meaning of the previous six years.
“Christopher, your mother never told you, did she?”
My stomach tightened.
“Told me what?”
Rosalind reached into the battered suitcase.
She removed a worn brown envelope.
Inside was a document.
At the bottom was my name.
Christopher James Hawthorne.
And beneath it was my signature.
Except I had never signed it.
I stared at the paper.
“What is this?”
Rosalind's voice shook.
“The reason I disappeared.”
I looked at my forged signature.
Then at the two little boys.
My phone rang for the third time.
This time, I answered.
“Christopher,” Martin snapped, “the Calder family is about to walk. Where are you?”
I looked directly at Rosalind.
“Cancel the meeting.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Cancel the acquisition.”
“Christopher, this is a hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar transaction.”
“I know.”
“Then what happened?”
I looked at the signature someone had spent six years hiding from me.
“I just found something more important.”
And when Rosalind finally told me who had handed her that document, I realized the airport wasn't where this story had begun.
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It was where my family's secret had finally run out of places to hide.
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