Chương 5
Anna stared.
“I already told you that.”
Margaret laughed.
Then she cried.
Anna looked uncomfortable.
Daniel turned toward the window.
After a while Anna said, “Are you mad?”
Margaret stopped.
“At you?”
“You wasted money on the test.”
Daniel made a choking sound.
Margaret leaned forward.
“No.”
Anna looked unconvinced.
“No,” Margaret said again. “Nobody is mad.”
“You cry when you’re mad.”
Margaret remembered.
She used to.
At twenty-nine, overwhelmed with two children, a husband constantly traveling, and a mother whose health was failing, Margaret had cried during arguments because anger frightened her.
Anna remembered that.
“You remember too much,” Margaret whispered.
Anna looked down.
“No.”
The answer carried so much weight that Margaret did not push.
News of Anna’s identification leaked that afternoon.
By evening, satellite trucks were outside the hospital.
Margaret’s phone became unusable.
Daniel’s office called.
Then called again.
Margaret’s sister Ellen left six voicemails and one message that simply said:
IS IT REALLY HER?
The sheriff’s office asked the family to say nothing publicly.
Margaret agreed.
Then she saw the headline.
MISSING HEIRESS FOUND LIVING IN CHICKEN COOP.
She threw her phone across the hotel room.
Daniel looked up from his laptop.
“Mom.”
“She is not an heiress.”
“She technically—”
“Don’t.”
He closed the laptop.
Margaret paced.
“Do you know what they’re doing? They’re turning her into some freak story. Rich family loses daughter, finds her eating chicken feed. That’s what they want.”
Daniel was silent.
“And why does everyone keep calling us wealthy like that explains something?”
“Because we are wealthy.”
Margaret looked at him.
“This is not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
She sat.
He leaned forward.
“Our money is part of this whether we like it or not.”
Margaret rubbed her forehead.
The Hale family money came from commercial real estate, most of it built by Margaret’s late husband, Thomas. They had never been billionaires, despite what certain websites claimed, but they owned enough that reporters liked photographs of gates and long driveways.
When Anna disappeared in 2003, money had helped.
Private investigators.
Rewards.
Search teams.
Television appearances.
Flights.
Lawyers.
It had also created problems.
Fraudsters.
False witnesses.
Extortion attempts.
People who insisted the Hales had staged the disappearance.
People who insisted Margaret had killed her own child.
People who sent letters describing where they claimed Anna’s body was buried.
Thomas became obsessed.
Then bitter.
Then quiet.
Their marriage lasted another eleven years but never recovered.
He died of a heart attack at fifty-two.
Anna did not know.
Margaret had not yet told her.
That became the next impossible thing.
She waited until the hospital room was quiet.
Daniel had gone for coffee.
Anna was combing her hair with the cheap plastic brush he bought.
She had cut out the worst tangles herself that morning.
“Anna.”
Her daughter glanced up.
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
Anna stopped brushing.
Margaret’s courage disappeared.
She almost changed the subject.
Then Anna said, “Dad?”
Margaret nodded.
Anna lowered the brush.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
No visible reaction.
Margaret continued.
“Heart attack.”
Anna looked toward the window.
“Was he still looking?”
Margaret’s throat closed.
“Yes.”
It was not the whole truth.
Thomas had stopped active searching two years before he died.
Not because he believed Anna was dead.
Because hope had destroyed him.
He had told Margaret, during their final serious argument, “I can’t keep waking up every morning inside the worst day of my life.”
Margaret had called him a coward.
He moved out three weeks later.
Now she could have edited that history.
She wanted to.
Anna deserved a father who never stopped.
But false comfort had already taken too much from her.
“He stopped using investigators near the end,” Margaret said.
Anna looked at her.
“Why?”
“He couldn’t do it anymore.”
“So he gave up.”
Margaret swallowed.
“Yes.”
Anna nodded once.
Margaret waited for grief.
Anger.
Something.
Anna picked up the brush again.
“He lasted longer than you.”
Margaret felt as if the room had shifted.
“What?”
Anna pulled the brush through the end of her hair.
“Victor said you stopped after two years.”
“I never stopped.”
Anna’s hand froze.
“I never stopped looking for you.”
The brush dropped.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Anna—”
“He had papers.”
“What papers?”
Anna stood.
“Newspaper things. Interviews. He showed me.”
Margaret’s pulse accelerated.
“What did they say?”
“That you moved.”
“We did move.”
“That you had another baby.”
“No.”
“That you said you needed closure.”
Margaret stared.
She had said those words.
Once.
At a charity event marking the tenth anniversary of Anna’s disappearance, a reporter asked whether the family needed closure.
Margaret had answered, “I don’t believe closure is real. I need answers.”
The quote had been shortened in several articles.
I need closure.
She saw how easily it could have been used.
“He said you paid people to stop looking.”
“No.”
“He showed me the paper.”
“What paper?”
Anna was breathing faster.
“A letter.”
“From me?”
“Yes.”
Margaret stood carefully.
“I never wrote you a letter saying I stopped looking.”
Anna stepped back.
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You signed it.”
“I don’t care what it looked like. I did not write it.”
Anna grabbed the locket.
Margaret saw fear, then rage.
“You don’t get to change it now.”
“I’m not changing anything.”
“Everybody changes things.”
The door opened.
Daniel entered carrying coffee.
He stopped.
“What happened?”
Anna pointed at Margaret.
“She says she didn’t write it.”
Daniel looked confused.
“Write what?”
“The letter.”
Margaret turned to him.
“Victor showed her a letter that was supposedly from me saying I stopped searching.”
Daniel set the coffee down.
“When?”
Anna looked away.
“Years ago.”
“Do you remember what it said?”
“Daniel.”
He glanced at his mother.
“What?”
“Not now.”
Anna laughed bitterly.
“He wants proof.”
Daniel’s face fell.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Anna. I believe you saw it. I’m trying to figure out if we can find it.”
Anna’s anger faltered.
“The farmhouse.”
“Where?”
“A box.”
“What box?”
She rubbed her temple.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Daniel waited.
Anna became increasingly agitated.
