Chương 6
Inside, the air smelled of dust and concrete.
Unit 317 contained what remained of a life after family had taken the obvious things.
A sewing machine Elena had not used in twelve years.
Three lamps.
Two boxes of tax records.
Christmas decorations.
A wooden chair with one loose rung.
Five plastic bins labeled in her mother’s handwriting.
Maya stared at them.
Janelle leaned against the door frame.
“You don’t have to do all of this today.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s apparently a billionaire family reading files about my mother right now.”
“That is a disturbing sentence.”
Maya opened the first bin.
Kitchen.
The second contained photographs.
Most were familiar.
Maya as a baby.
Maya in preschool.
Elena at the beach.
Elena wearing a horrible denim hat in 2006.
No Richard.
The third bin was labeled PAPERS.
Maya sat on the floor.
Janelle sat opposite her.
For two hours they found nothing.
Old utility bills.
A lease from Pasadena.
Insurance documents.
Receipts.
A certificate from an art-handling course Elena had taken in 1997.
Then Janelle unfolded a yellowed FedEx receipt.
“Do you know this address?”
Maya read it.
VALE HOLDINGS
ATTN: CHARLES VALE
BEVERLY HILLS, CA.
Date: March 14, 2004.
Maya’s mouth went dry.
“Keep looking.”
There were three more receipts.
2004.
2007.
2013.
All addressed to Vale Holdings.
Two marked delivery refused.
One marked returned to sender.
The 2013 envelope had been opened and resealed.
Inside was a photocopy of a letter.
Maya read the first line.
Mr. Vale,
I am writing because Maya is asking questions I cannot answer forever.
Her vision blurred.
Janelle put one hand on her knee.
Maya kept reading.
Elena’s letter was not dramatic.
That made it unbearable.
She wrote that Maya was healthy. Smart. Stubborn. She liked drawing horses badly and correcting adults when they used words incorrectly. Elena said she had not contacted Richard directly because Charles Vale had made the consequences clear.
But Maya was twelve now.
She deserved the choice someday.
Elena asked for one thing.
A way to contact Richard without going through his father.
At the bottom was a handwritten notation in blue ink.
No response. Do not forward. Existing agreement governs.
Initials followed.
V.S.
Maya photographed every page.
Then she called Richard.
He answered before the first full ring.
“Maya?”
“Who is V.S.?”
Silence.
“What?”
“I found a letter my mother sent your father in 2013. Someone wrote ‘No response. Do not forward. Existing agreement governs.’ Initials V.S.”
Richard exhaled.
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“I will.”
“Your father threatened her.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“No. You’re beginning to hear it.”
Richard said nothing.
Maya continued.
“She wrote that he made the consequences clear. What consequences?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Yes.”
The answer stopped her.
Richard’s voice was quieter.
“It is.”
Maya stared at the concrete floor.
Richard said, “I found something too.”
“What?”
“A file from 2001.”
Maya stood.
Janelle looked at her.
“What kind of file?”
“A private investigator’s report.”
“On my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Your father hired someone to follow her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m not going to invent an answer because you’re angry.”
Maya closed her eyes.
He was right.
She hated that.
“What does the report say?”
“It says she was pregnant.”
Maya’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“And?”
“That she left Los Angeles in her seventh month.”
“Where?”
“San Diego first. Then Tucson.”
“My mother lived in Tucson?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Richard paused.
“There are hospital references.”
“What kind?”
“Billing inquiries. I’m still reading.”
“Send it to me.”
“Maya.”
“Send it.”
“There are things in here about your mother that may not be accurate.”
“Then I get to decide that.”
“You’re right.”
The file arrived ten minutes later.
By midnight Maya had read it twice.
Charles Vale had hired a private investigator in November 2000.
The investigator followed Elena to medical appointments, photographed her outside an apartment, identified two friends, and documented a meeting with an attorney.
In January 2001, there was a notation that Elena had received a payment from a Vale family account.
One hundred thousand dollars.
Maya stared at the number.
Janelle said, “That doesn’t mean what they’ll say it means.”
“What will they say?”
“That she took money.”
“She did.”
“Maybe for medical bills.”
“Maybe to leave.”
“You don’t know.”
Maya looked at her.
“Exactly.”
The last page contained a summary dated April 2001.
Subject delivered female infant in Tucson. No further action recommended per C.V.
Maya read it again.
Female infant.
Richard had been told she died.
Charles knew she had lived.
The next morning Richard came to Maya’s apartment.
She almost refused to let him in.
Then she saw his face.
He carried a file folder.
Not a lawyer.
Not Daniel.
Just the folder.
“What happened?” Maya asked.
Richard stepped inside.
“I know who V.S. is.”
“Who?”
“Victoria Sloan.”
Maya stared at him.
“Victoria?”
“She used her maiden name professionally before we married.”
Maya’s skin went cold.
“The note is from 2013.”
“Yes.”
“You married her when?”
“2014.”
“So she knew before she married you.”
Richard looked at the floor.
“Yes.”
Maya laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
Richard did not react.
“She knew I existed.”
“Yes.”
“She knew my mother was trying to contact your family.”
“Yes.”
“And she never told you.”
“No.”
Maya paced to the window.
Richard placed the folder on the table.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Victoria worked for my father’s charitable foundation from 2011 to 2014. She handled donor correspondence and family archive requests.”
Maya turned.
“She intercepted my mother’s letter?”
“It appears my father instructed her to.”
“And then married you.”
“Yes.”
Maya stared at him.
Richard’s face had the flat, stunned look of someone who had exhausted anger and had not yet found what came after it.
“Why?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“She won’t tell you?”
“She left the house.”
“Where?”
“A hotel.”
“Did you ask?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
