Her face softened just a little, enough for him to notice, but she still did not return the favour. “It is possible,” she conceded. “But her twin died at birth. Her parents have already proven this. So it stands to reason that if Lora survived birth, she must be the pureblood sibling.”
He wafted a hand away as if that didn’t matter.
“Thorpe and Eliza would not lie to me. They are loyal to the Pack.”
“So why aren’t they here? Why don’t they live here, where they belong? I tell you why!” he shot out the words before Maria could respond. “They do not accept who they are, they never have. They prefer to live around ‘normal’ people over their own family! You're their mother and you haven't seen them in years! You didn't meet Lora until she was a grown woman! All this proves to me is that they abhor us, so much so that they didn't want any child of theirs to live like us. Who knows what they might have done to prevent that happening.”
“Might have done? Arik, what are you insinuating? Have you gone mad?” she whispered.
“You deny that it is possible that they could have lied about Lora's twin’s death, because in their mind they'd have been 'protecting' it from us? Because, lets face it, not many people happily accept hybrid children. Thorpe thought we would react the same.”
Maria said nothing.
Arik continued. “Your son hid away from us the moment he and Eliza left this place and when we finally found them and eventually got their acceptance to bring Lora here so she could get our support, they allowed it as if they were more than happy to oblige. It was easy; too easy. It didn't make sense to me. Garik agrees also.”
“Garik has always been overly paranoid,” she argued. She disliked her eldest son’s inability to believe anything without scouring every detail until he was certain it was true.
“Even so, it turns out he was right to have his suspicions. He says he may have a lead,” Arik replied.
“He always thinks he knows more than everyone else,” Maria retorted, holding up her pointed chin to conceal the rolling of her dark green eyes in the shadows.
The old man’s eyes were sharper than she gave them credit for, but he let it slide. It was clear he had a soft place in his heart for his old friend. He always had.
It had crushed him many years ago when young Maria had been paired with her late husband, Vern, though he had never breathed a word of it to anyone.
He, Vern and Maria had always been close friends. Vern’s death caused a lot of heartache in both of them. In a way, it brought them closer together; as friends of course, nothing more. That ship had long since sailed. Thirty odd years if anyone’s counting. He was, of course.
He blinked out of his thoughts and said, “He tells me that he found old tape footage from a CCTV camera of Thorpe's BMW stopping at a petrol station in Sheffield, the day Eliza gave birth. He said it looked like there was an occupied baby car seat in the back. And a few of our tech team have confirmed it. Which would beg the question, what was Thorpe doing in Sheffield, three hours from home, with a newborn baby in his car?”
Maria blanched. She remembered Thorpe calling her that day. He'd said he was with Eliza and baby Lora. He was in tears about the loss of the twin, so was Maria when she heard her son sobbing down the phone. Not once did he mention this peculiar trip. Why would he go? He was the kind of man to stay and comfort his wife after the loss of a child, not go on mysterious trips.
Arik shifted position and sighed. “The baby wasn't Lora. It was the twin. Thorpe must have given the child to another family to hide it from all of us.
“I'm sorry, Maria, that Lora did not survive her pregnancy. I know you're grieving her loss, and also your great grandson, but we have to look at the facts.
“I am almost certain now, thanks to Garik and Kerk's research, that Lora does have a twin who is alive and living somewhere, possibly in Sheffield, and she is the pureblood sibling.
“From what Garik and Kerk found, it's clear that Eliza gave birth at home and went to hospital afterwards. We suspect at some point between the births and the hospital, Thorpe hid the twin. Which would explain his suspicious trip.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don't know, Maria. No doubt the same reason he couldn't stand living here any longer.
“What still confuses me is why he allowed Lora to come here but did all he could to hide the other child. Why would he hide the pureblood but not the hybrid child? Perhaps he somehow accidentally mixed them up? I don't understand...” Arik became lost in thought as memories flooded his mind.
“Lora was one of us! Stop talking about her like she was an outsider! She was still a Were! Pureblood or not!” Maria snapped. “She had the scent on her! How can you dismiss her like that when she had the scent of a pureblood?!”
“Do we have many hybrids around to compare scents with?”
Maria lowered her gaze at his words.