Marcus had been Ray’s closest friend at work. He answered on the first ring.
“Evelyn?”
I told him everything. The note, the footage, the confrontation, and the journals.
He went quiet for a long moment.
“I knew Ray,” he said finally. “If he had children, he would have told someone. He couldn’t keep a Christmas gift secret.”
A weak laugh escaped me.
“I’ll help you,” Marcus said. “You deserve the truth.”
The next afternoon, he offered to go speak to Lydia himself. When I warned him he might lose his temper, he sent his daughter instead.
Her name was Tessa. She was seventeen, level-headed, and observant.
“I can back out if you want,” she told me before she left. “You don’t owe anyone proof.”
“I owe it to myself,” I replied. “And to Ray.”
Marcus found Lydia’s address through old vendor paperwork. Tessa drove there alone.
When she returned an hour later, we sat at my kitchen table.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
“A teenage girl answered the door,” Tessa began. “She was wearing pajama pants and had her hair in a messy bun. I asked if her dad was home.”
My heart pounded.
“A man in his fifties came to the door. I told him I was there because of something his wife said at a funeral.”
Tessa swallowed.
“I told him she claimed her children belonged to Ray.”
I closed my eyes.
“He froze,” she continued. “Then he called for Lydia. She came out of the kitchen. When she saw both of us standing there, she knew something was wrong.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She denied it at first. Then her husband asked her directly if she had told people their kids were not his.”
