Larissa Judson and Haskell Palmer novel Chapter 608

Closing the door, Rigby turned. “Sire, who’s it from?”

Sire, who had been watching TV in the living room, shook his head and made a sign.

[Open it and see.]

Rigby sat on the sofa next to him and opened the box. Inside was a stack of photographs.

As Sire looked at them, his pupils dilated. They were all pictures of his savior, Romilly Carlton—Haskell’s mother. There were photos of her from before her death, and gruesome, bloody pictures from the scene of the car crash.

His hands trembled as he snatched up the photos, his breathing becoming ragged.

“Sire, what’s wrong?” Rigby asked, seeing his distress. He had a sinking feeling he knew who the woman in the photos was.

His biological mother.

Suddenly, a slip of paper fell out from between the pictures. Scrawled across it were a few lines:

[Romilly’s death was no accident. The crash was orchestrated. If you want the truth, call this number.]

Rigby’s breath hitched. “Sire, this could be a trap. We should ignore it.”

Sire shook his head frantically, his hands flying in a flurry of signs: [No! Call the number for me! Now! I have to know the truth! I can’t let my savior—your mother—have died in vain!]

For years, the only thing that had kept Sire going was his duty to repay Romilly’s kindness by raising Rigby. Now, someone was telling him her death wasn’t an accident. He had to know what really happened.

“Who I am doesn’t matter,” the voice replied. “I just wanted to tell you something. You didn’t really think Romilly died in a simple car accident, did you?”

“You didn’t really think that twenty-two years ago, her son was sent away just because Thatch bribed a fortune teller to say the boy would bring bad luck to the Palmer family, did you?”

Rigby frowned. “Isn’t that what happened? Thatch did it so his illegitimate son could take my place.”

“Of course not,” the voice scoffed. “Thatch was just a pawn. The real mastermind behind it all was the true head of the Palmer family. Did you really think a petty trick like that could fool your grandfather? Make him send away his own grandson, right around the same time Romilly just happened to die in a car crash?”

His grandfather? The patriarch of the Palmer family, Zoltan Palmer.

Rigby’s frown deepened. “If that’s true, why would Zoltan do it?”