Page 133 of All We Carry Home

Eva came to a stop and turned to me, her eyes glassy as she looked up. “Warren.” Her voice caught. “You were right, at the airport. That you should know why our relationship, business, whatever this is”—her lips curved into a smile for just a heartbeat—“why that needs to end here, now.”

No, this couldn’t end. My breath came short and my chest constricted. I hadn’t expected this—not here, not now.

I’d hardly processed all that we’d learned from Keith in his confession—that he’d killed his father in his effort to save Eva. My blood still boiled at the stains on her coat and the droplets in the dirt because of Keith’s greed and carelessness.

I faced her, took her hands in mine, clamping my molars tight to keep from interrupting.

She grasped my hands, her body trembling. This wasn’t the fearless woman I knew.

“Remember in Seattle, how Elaine Hartford thought I looked like Irene Chalmers?”

I blinked, trying to place the names. Elaine was the older woman at the banquet?

“I wasn’t honest with you about my past.” She searched my face as she spoke. “I look like Irene Chalmers, because she was my mother. Raymond Chalmers was my father.”

At first, my mind didn’t process the weight of her words.

“My name isn’t Bryant. It’s Evelyn Chalmers.”

Eva, short for Evelyn. But Chalmers?

Then the memories rushed in.

The bank robbers. The murderers. The husband-wife duo who died in a shootout with police at my father’s bank in Philadelphia. Their six-year-old daughter—the girl with haunting blue eyes—in the car when they’d battled it to the death.

The flash of an image on The New York Times front page came to mind. A young girl, led from the shattered and bullet-ridden remains of a black sedan, and her sorrowful, captivating innocence. The photo had been reprinted thousands of times, and Evelyn Chalmers had become as infamous as the Lindbergh baby. The Lindbergh case had ended in tragedy, but the absence of Evelyn Chalmers from public knowledge had only deepened the lore.

Because she’d escaped to Oregon. Where kind stranger Bill Birkstrom took in the broken, terrified little child and adopted her as his own.

It all made sense now.

Her tragic childhood that she never wanted to explain.

Her comments about the publicity of a national show championship and how different it was from the front page of The New York Times. She’d known that firsthand.

As my thoughts settled into place, I absorbed the shame in her eyes. The guilt and regret that poured from her twisted features.

Compassion rose from deep inside me, and I pulled her closer, holding her back with one hand, cupping her face with the other. “Eva,” I whispered. “Is that why you thought we couldn’t be together?”

She blinked, the angst in her face morphing into confusion. “It’s not a trivial thing, Warren.”

“It must have been horrible for you.” I brushed at a tear that escaped the corner of her eye. “You were a child. You’re innocent in all of that, Eva.”

She searched my face, still surprised by something.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked.

“It changes everything.”

“It changes nothing.”

“Your campaign?”

“If I can’t win on my merit, so be it. Your past is your past. You’re not responsible for those lives.”

“You have no idea,” she said. “The frenzy.”

“I have some idea.” I squeezed her arm gently. “It happened at my family’s bank. But I don’t care. I will face that a thousand times over with you.”