‘We were supposed to go and live on the mainland together,’ she said, ‘Max and me. I was going to tell him about our baby after we arrived.’ She looked back toward the manor house. ‘He didn’t even warn me he was leaving. I came over one day and Mason just said he’d gone. Left, just like that, without even a goodbye. Then Mason laughed at me and called me a little slut, said I was stupid to think his son would ever settle for a cop’s daughter.’

‘And you were still angry enough after all these years to sneak up here and attack him this week, weren’t you?’

She clamped her lips firmly shut.

‘This is only the third time Max has been back since leaving, isn’t it?’

She offered him a slight shrug.

‘And you thought it might be your last chance to tell him what happened?’

A shake of her head.

‘Or maybe you just wanted a sliver of revenge on him for abandoning you and your child?’

Another head-shake.

‘Come on, Evelyn. Admit it. You came up here on Sunday using the fire trails, and you crept down to the manor with the intention of … what? Confronting Max? Then you thought you saw him alone in the kitchen and decided to attack him from behind with a cast-iron pan? Or had you planned to attack him all along?’

Evelyn was holding her breath.

‘You blamed Max for not helping you keep your baby.’

Silence.

‘He couldn’t have, you know that,’ he said.

Evelyn was incandescent with rage. ‘Of course he could have!’

‘But you mistook Mason for Max and hit him from behind instead, didn’t you?’

She returned to silence.

‘Did your father know about the baby?’

Terror flooded her eyes. Even knowing Aiden Kelly had been arrested, Evelyn’s world still revolved around her father.

‘He would have killed me.’

Her voice shook.

‘Did Mason know?’

‘I doubt it. He was blind to everything but this stupid vineyard.’

‘Either way, you weren’t unhappy when you realised it was Mason you attacked instead of Max, were you?’

Defiance returned to her eyes.

‘So none of the men knew about your baby—not Max, not Mason, and not your father?’

‘No.’

Jake paused. The foundations of Evelyn’s world had crumbled mere hours ago when her father tried to murder her. The veneer of lies and delusion that formed her self-image had already taken a battering today.

But Jake was out of sympathy for her. ‘And you thought she died at birth?’

Evelyn looked at him sharply. ‘It was a boy. A son, not a daughter. And yes, he died when he was born.’

‘Did Ava tell you it was a boy?’