Chapter Twenty-Three
In the morning I take a cab instead of the bus. The routes don’t go into the upscale part of Tanglewood, where the gates are high and the pools are glittering. I slip the taxi driver a little extra to cruise the wide streets until I spot the house from memory. Daddy and I attended Nina Thomas’s fiftieth birthday party a while ago, but I still remember the gorgeous Corinthian columns across the front.
It isn’t Nina who answers the door, or even a servant, but Charlotte. Her pretty eyes widen. “Avery. Are you okay?”
That tells me what I look like right now, dark shadows under my eyes and soul grieving my father’s secret shame. “I’m not sure. I’m sorry to just show up like this, but I was wondering if it would be possible to see your mother.”
The worry doesn’t fade fr
