Chương 9
Nathan leaned against the dining table.
“I was two.”
“Right.”
“I mostly remember being told you ruined my life.”
“That sounds like you.”
“It does.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Nathan’s expression changed.
“There was one thing.”
Claire waited.
“Dad used to say you were the most expensive free baby in America.”
“What?”
“I thought it was one of his dumb jokes.”
“Why would he say that?”
“He said Mom didn’t get a hospital bill for you.”
Claire looked at the papers.
“That’s impossible.”
“Maybe insurance covered everything.”
“In 1989?”
“I don’t know.”
“You remember him saying that?”
“A bunch of times.”
Claire returned to the box.
At the bottom was a thick envelope with no address.
Across the front Evelyn had written Nathan.
Her brother saw it at the same time.
He picked it up.
The flap was sealed.
Claire said, “Open it.”
Nathan slid a finger beneath the edge.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
He read silently.
“What?”
He handed it to her.
The note contained only four lines.
Nathan, if this reaches you, Claire has probably already received the church certificate.
Do not let her believe Daniel created it.
Take her to the locker before anyone from St. Gabriel’s gets there.
The key is with Margaret Vale.
Claire read it again.
Nathan whispered, “Mom knew the certificate would be sent.”
“And she knew Margaret had the key.”
“But Margaret said she never knew Mom.”
Claire folded the note.
“Either Margaret lied or Mom knew about her without meeting her.”
Nathan looked toward the door.
“We should call the police.”
“And say what?”
“That somebody’s following Mom’s paperwork.”
“Nothing has been stolen.”
“Someone came to my house.”
“And knocked.”
“Very suspicious crime.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“I’m trying to keep us in reality.”
Nathan took out his phone.
“I’m at least sending Melissa the plate number.”
“Fine.”
Claire returned the hospital papers to the accordion folder but kept Evelyn’s note.
As she reached the bottom of the box, her fingertips struck something hard beneath the cardboard liner.
She pulled the liner upward.
A photograph slid out.
Unlike the faded picture outside St. Gabriel’s, this one had been printed recently from a digital image.
It showed Evelyn sitting at a restaurant table with a woman whose face Claire recognized from the church photograph despite the decades between them.
Marianne.
Alive.
Older, gray threaded through her blond hair, but unmistakable.
On the table between them lay the same baptism certificate Claire had received that afternoon.
Nathan stared over her shoulder.
“When was that taken?”
Claire turned the photograph over.
There was no date.
Only one sentence in Evelyn’s handwriting.
If Marianne comes back after I’m gone, do not let her near Lucy.
Nathan whispered, “Jesus.”
Claire’s phone rang again.
Daniel.
She answered.
His voice was low and controlled.
“Claire, where are you?”
“At Nathan’s.”
“Come home.”
Something in his tone made her stand straighter.
“What happened?”
“Lucy’s fine.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I know.”
“Daniel.”
There was a pause.
“Someone just came to the house.”
Claire looked at Nathan.
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“Did she give you a name?”
“No.”
“Did you open the door?”
“No.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked for you.”
Claire gripped the photograph.
“Is she still there?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I watched her leave.”
“What did she look like?”
“Late fifties, maybe sixty.”
Claire looked down at Marianne’s older face.
“Blond?”
“Gray-blond.”
Nathan had gone completely still.
Daniel continued, “She left something on the porch.”
“What?”
“A little silver key.”
Claire’s eyes moved to Evelyn’s note.
The key is with Margaret Vale.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Too late.”
“Daniel, listen to me.”
“I am.”
“Lock the doors.”
“They’re locked.”
“Keep Lucy away from the windows.”
“Claire, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m coming home.”
Nathan reached for his keys.
Then Daniel said, “There’s one more thing.”
Claire stopped.
“The woman told me to give you a message.”
“What message?”
Daniel hesitated.
“She said Evelyn lied about which baby came home from the hospital.”
Claire did not answer for three seconds, and in those three seconds the room seemed to rearrange itself around the sentence.
Nathan took the phone from her hand before she could object and put Daniel on speaker.
“Say exactly what she said.”
Daniel’s voice sharpened.
“Who is this?”
“Nathan.”
“I know who you are, Nathan.”
“Then say it again.”
Claire reached for the phone, but Nathan stepped away.
Daniel said, “She said, ‘Tell Claire that Evelyn lied about which baby came home from the hospital.’”
“Anything else?”
“She asked whether Lucy was home.”
Claire snatched the phone back.
“You didn’t tell her.”
“No.”
“Did she see Lucy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Claire, I didn’t invite her in for coffee.”
A small voice sounded somewhere behind him.
“Dad?”
Daniel immediately lowered his voice.
“I’ll call you back.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The key.”
“What about it?”
“Where is it?”
“On the kitchen counter.”
“Put it in an envelope and don’t touch it again.”
“You’re talking like it’s evidence.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Evidence of what?”
Claire looked at the two hospital discharge forms.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel went quiet.
That answer frightened him more than anything else she had said.
“Come home,” he said.
“I am.”
“Now, Claire.”
“Yes.”
The call ended.
Nathan was already putting the papers back into the box.
“We take everything.”
Claire picked up the recent photograph of Marianne.
“No.”
“Not this again.”
“Margaret is expecting us at St. Gabriel’s.”
“And Lucy has a stranger coming to her house.”
“We go home first.”
“Then what?”
Claire slipped the photograph into her purse.
“Then I meet Margaret.”
Nathan stared at her as if waiting for the rest.
“That woman may have been Marianne.”
“I know.”
“And Mom wrote not to let Marianne near Lucy.”
“I know.”
“And Margaret has the key Mom wanted you to use.”
“I know.”
“Could you stop saying that like it solves something?”
May you like
Claire shoved Evelyn’s note into her purse.
“It solves the part where you explain my own evening to me.”
