Free Claire at Sixteen by Susan Beth Pfeffer Page B

stories.
    â€œEvvie knows all of this?” he asked. “It was in the detective’s report, everything you’ve told me?”
    â€œI don’t know for sure that Evvie read the report,” Aunt Grace said. “I didn’t stand over her shoulder and turn the pages for her. I assume if she told you who Sebastian Prescott was, then her source of information was the report.” Aunt Grace snorted. “What a waste of money that report turned out to be,” she said. “It neither convinced Margaret that Nick was untrustworthy, nor did it convince Evvie that the Steinmetz boy was equally so.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” Claire said. “How does Sam fit into all this?”
    â€œHe lies about his family as much as Nick does,” Aunt Grace said. “I could see that Evvie made the connection, but like her mother, she chose not to care.”
    â€œWhat does Sam have to lie about?” Claire asked. “His parents are dead, and he lives with his grandparents. Evvie’s met his grandparents. The situations are completely different.”
    â€œHis mother isn’t dead,” Aunt Grace said. “I see Evvie keeps her secrets when she cares to.”
    So Sam really did lie all the time. Claire decided on the spot to respect his lies and not demand details from Aunt Grace. Besides, Sam wasn’t the key issue. It was Sebastian Prescott she was concerned about, him and his relationship to Nicky.
    â€œDo you know what became of Sebastian Prescott?” Claire asked, trying to sound casual about it.
    â€œI neither know nor care,” Aunt Grace replied. “Why? Do you wish to reconcile him with his son? I doubt the man would be interested. And to give Nick credit, I don’t think he’d want to pursue the relationship, either.”
    â€œI was just curious,” Claire said. “It isn’t every day a girl finds out she has a grandfather.”
    â€œWhy should he want to have anything to do with you?” Aunt Grace asked. “Don’t look to him for happy endings, my dear. He’s a respectable man, assuming he’s still alive, and he has a respectable wife and children. He’s chosen to forget he ever begot a bastard. The last thing he would care for would be four penniless granddaughters.”
    Claire nodded, and tried to look chastened. Sebastian Prescott certainly was respectable, and his respectable daughter had married Clark Bradford’s respectable cousin Bradford Hughes, and begot two respectable sons, Schyler and Prescott. And respectable Prescott was in love with Claire’s respectable sister Thea, and in lust with her own less-than-respectable self.
    Except for Evvie, who was choosing to pretend the situation didn’t exist, and Sam, who was dealing with his own respectable lies on Long Island, Claire was the only one in the world who knew about each and every piece of the puzzle. And not even Evvie knew their respectable grandfather Sebastian Prescott was going to be in Concord that week. Now, all Claire had to do was figure out how to make all the puzzle pieces work best for her.

C HAPTER S IX
    Claire nestled in the back of Aunt Grace’s chauffeur-driven limousine and considered what she had learned. Nicky was illegitimate for one thing, bereft of that heroic died-in-the-midst-of-battle father she had always found so boring. Thea had loved that grandfather story, and had cherished the one photograph Nicky had of him. Claire wondered where Nicky had gotten the picture. It certainly wasn’t one of Sebastian Prescott.
    Sebastian Prescott. Her grandfather. Scotty’s grandfather as well. That made them half cousins, if such a term existed. Not full cousins because Scotty’s mother came from the married side of the family, while Nicky’s mother had been seduced and bought off.
    Claire didn’t feel especially cousinly to Scotty, but then again, she’d never had a cousin, so it was hard