It connected several rooms on this floor and was a shortcut to the veranda and swimming pool. There was also a back staircase to the bedrooms on the upper floor, bypassing the grand staircase in the entryway. Kira remembered how fun it was to use this corridor to sneak around the house.
The hall was lined with painting after painting, and her throat squeezed as she recognized at least one artist’s style. Her heart pounded as she approached the large portrait at the end of the corridor. Almost life-sized, a woman stood with a child at her side. It was achingly familiar. The ornate background, which she’d always thought was a Gilded Age mansion, was the large formal living room of this very house.
She remembered it all now.
As she drew closer to her mother’s painting, the differences between this one and the one in her basement in Virginia became alarmingly clear. The child at her side was not herself. She studied the boy, probably aged five or six.
There was a baby in the cradle.
Rand gasped when he saw the portrait. “You look exactly like her.”
“Yes. My mother. She painted it.”
She considered the déjà vu feeling that had settled in as they approached the house. How the house looked like a child’s princess fantasy house. But now she knew it wasn’t just any childhood princess fantasy, but her childhood princess fantasy.
Except it hadn’t been fantasy. Those vague childhood dreams, the glimpse and scent of paradise, they had been all too real.
She had lived in this palace. She’d worn pretty, colorful princess dresses and had a dog named…she couldn’t remember the name, but it was on the edge of her brain as memories piled upon memories. The dog had been her second-best friend.
Her very best friend had been her older brother. Oh, how she’d worshipped him. She would follow him everywhere throughout the house. He would hide from her, and she would seek, using this corridor.
But it was the reverse game that was even better. She was so small. Five years younger than her brother, she could fit in the tightest hiding places. She was so good at hiding, so patient because she wanted to impress him with her skills, sometimes she’d wait for the longest time.
An eternity.
And her brother wasn’t the only child she’d played with. There were others she hid from in these corridors. She was better at hide-and-seek than all of them. Sometimes she was never found.
At least once, she’d fallen asleep as she hid in their mother’s bedroom. She woke to the sound of her mother and father talking. The German language, not the Russian one.
Her mother kissed her father, and she saw them through the slats of the cupboard. They kissed and kissed, and Kira no longer wanted to be there hiding. She was tired of waiting. Her brother hadn’t found her. She’d won the game.
She emerged from her hiding place, declaring victory, and saw the man her mother kissed wasn’t her father.
But also…he was. She knew his face from when he taught her to ride a bike and cheered for her after she gave her valedictorian speech at her high school graduation.
But it was wrong to see him here. He shouldn’t be kissing Mama. He was surprised and looked like she’d felt when she broke Papa’s glasses.
Was he angry that she’d won the game? It wasn’t a game for him. It was for princesses and princes. Not for mamas or daddies or papas.
She ran for the door to escape Mama’s room. But her mother’s sharp voice made her stop. Mama scolded her for hiding. Told her she knew better than to hide in private quarters. And she mustn’t tell anyone about Mama’s friend.
It was a secret. Mama would trust her, but she must be a good girl and keep the secret. If she did, she’d get ice cream. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry all in one bowl, just like she liked it.
She loved ice cream more than anything. She promised. She wouldn’t tell anyone, not even her older brother, Reuben.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tears poured down Kira’s cheeks as she stared at the painting. The memories were too overwhelming to verbalize for Rand. But she knew without a doubt they were real. Not a dream. Not a fantasy.
Reuben was her brother.
But how was that possible? Luka Kulik’s dead daughter would be in her midthirties. Kira was two months away from her fortieth birthday.
She remembered Reuben’s words that first night, calling her father a thief. And then there was the letter she believed was written by Luka Kulik.
We will drink a toast to success and grieve for those who are not present to celebrate with us. Your parents. My wife and daughter.
It had been a taunt. A reminder of the wife and child Luka Kulik no longer had, but Conrad Hanson did.
And then the letter she received yesterday:
In addition, the Stoltz treasures have been located. Come to Malta. Once all is returned, our friendship must end. But we will not grieve, for all will be as it should, with treasures once stolen, now returned.
I’m the stolen treasure.
Her dad—Conrad Hanson—had stolen her from her real father, Luka Kulik.
Somehow, decades after the theft, Kulik found out, and orchestrated Kira’s return.
“What have you remembered, Kira?” Rand’s voice was soft. Gentle. And beyond patient.
“I remember this place. My mother, my father. My brother. One memory—playing hide-and-seek with Reuben and seeing my mother…Reuben’s mother…kissing my dad. But not my real father. The man who raised me. Conrad Hanson.”
“Luka Kulik is your father.”
“Now I know how Luke felt.” She swiped at her tears and let out a bitter laugh. “When Darth Vader broke the news, I mean.”
