Claire let out another yawn. “That’d be nice.”

“It’s exciting to have a cousin that doesn’t hate me,” Lucy said, shooting a look at Marty.

“A cousin that doesn’t hate you yet,” Marty said with a smirk.

The room erupted into laughter. As much as Claire didn’t want to leave them, it’d be bad for Marty if someone showed up at the cabin looking for her. It was best if she went back to the hotel and acted normally.

Claire settled on giving them each a hug goodbye. “Have fun.”

Lucy nodded. “Sure. I’ll be over in the morning.”

Claire locked the door behind her, but before she went to her car, she paused to peek through the front window of the cabin. She could hear the rumbles of their laughter, and Lucy appeared to be rummaging through the cupboards, satisfied only when she found a box of microwave popcorn.

Claire smiled to herself. If only she could tell Uncle Robert – her life was already better than anything she could dream.

Chapter Fifteen

To think that Marty had initially been afraid of Lucy. When she’d first knocked on the door, he’d panicked and tried to hide.

Lucy had spotted him and rapped on the window, yelling, “I see you in there!”

She’d looked vaguely familiar from the photo albums, but at the time, he couldn’t be certain she wasn’t working with the FBI.

At least not until Claire returned after her night out with Chip. Then it became clear that Lucy was who she said she was, and that she was incapable of hiding anything.

Lucy returned to the couch with a bowl of popcorn and began a rapid-fire interrogation. He told her all about his unceremonious exit from working on SureFired, as well as his evasion of the FBI.

He felt awkward talking so much – he normally wasn’t much of a talker – and decided to change the subject by asking her to tell him about her life.

“Okay,” she said, smiling broadly. “It all started when I was born.” She paused, then burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding. I won’t go back that far. I mean, you already know about the plane crash. That’s actually the first thing I remember.”

“Really? You remember the crash?”

Lucy shook her head. “Not the crash itself. But I remember being afraid of planes, even when they flew overhead. It used to freak me out. Claire had to take me to a kid therapist.”

“Oh yeah?” Maybe if Marty’s parents had taken him to a therapist, they could’ve found a way to tell him he was adopted.

“I still can’t get on a plane.” Lucy let out a sigh. “Claire took all of us to therapy, but I was the oldest and actually, you know, knew that my parents were gone.”

“How old were your sisters? When the accident happened.”