Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Emily knew something was wrong the moment David returned.
He walked into the hotel room carrying the folder beneath his arm.
He did not take off his jacket.
He did not speak.
He stood near the window.
Emily rose slowly from the bed.
“What happened?”
David gave her the file.
She read the first page.
Then the second.
When she finished, she looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“David.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry.”
His voice was not angry.
That made it worse.
Emily set the papers down.
“What do you need?”
He stared outside.
“I need to know whether it’s true.”
“We can test it.”
He nodded.
She stepped closer.
“Whatever that file says, Thomas was still your father.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“If they forged one parent, why not both?”
Emily had no answer.
David turned.
“I spent my entire life trying not to become her.”
“You didn’t.”
“What if none of it was mine?”
“The company?”
“My name.”
Emily touched his face.
“Your name is yours because you lived it.”
He closed his eyes.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then David’s phone rang.
Eleanor.
He answered.
“Did you find what you wanted?”
Emily’s eyes widened.
David put the call on speaker.
“You knew.”
Eleanor laughed softly.
“About what?”
“The Halcyon file.”
“Careful, David.”
“Are you my mother?”
Silence.
It lasted five full seconds.
Then Eleanor said, “I raised you.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I gave you everything.”
“Who gave birth to me?”
Her voice changed.
“You are emotional.”
David laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“Who was she?”
“You should come home.”
“No.”
“We can discuss this privately.”
“Say her name.”
Eleanor ended the call.
Emily stared at the phone.
“She knows everything.”
“Yes.”
Marcus arranged a DNA test.
Results would take several days.
Meanwhile, he continued searching Halcyon records.
One photograph became important.
It had been pinned near David’s newborn image.
A woman stood outside the same Maryland building.
Young.
Dark hair.
Pale coat.
She was visibly pregnant.
On the back was a name.
Rebecca Hale.
Marcus found an old address.
Rebecca Hale had vanished thirty-six years earlier.
No death certificate.
No marriage record.
No tax filings after that year.
But another document existed.
A restraining order petition.
Filed against Thomas Blackwood.
Never adjudicated.
Withdrawn three days before David was born.
Emily read the petition.
“She said he threatened her.”
David’s face became rigid.
“She said Thomas wanted the baby.”
Marcus nodded.
The petition contained only one handwritten statement:
He says the child belongs to his family whether I agree or not.
David closed the folder.
For the first time, Emily saw him look afraid of learning the truth.
A second discovery came that evening.
Rebecca Hale had a younger sister.
Caroline.
Alive.
Living in Virginia.
David drove there the next morning.
Emily insisted on coming.
Caroline Hale lived in a small house near Richmond.
She was sixty-two.
When she opened the door and saw David, the color left her face.
“No.”
David froze.
Caroline backed away.
“No, no, no.”
“My name is David Blackwood.”
“I know who you are.”
Emily stepped forward.
“We only want to talk.”
Caroline looked at her pregnancy.
Then at David.
“Did Eleanor send you?”
“No.”
“Then you need to leave.”
David took out Rebecca’s photograph.
Caroline stared.
Her eyes filled.
“Where did you get that?”
“Halcyon.”
She gripped the door.
“Please.”
“Was Rebecca my mother?”
Caroline closed her eyes.
Then opened the door wider.
Inside, she told them the story.
Rebecca was twenty-four when she met Thomas Blackwood.
He was married.
Powerful.
Obsessive.
According to Caroline, their relationship lasted less than a year.
Rebecca tried to leave after becoming pregnant.
Thomas refused to accept it.
Then Eleanor discovered everything.
Emily asked, “What did Eleanor do?”
Caroline’s hands trembled.
“She offered Rebecca money.”
“For the baby?”
“For silence.”
“Did Rebecca take it?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Caroline looked directly at David.
“Three days before you were born, Rebecca called me.”
David barely breathed.
“She said they were taking her somewhere.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
Caroline wiped her face.
“She said a doctor had come to the apartment. She sounded drugged.”
“Vance?”
“I never knew his name.”
David showed her a photograph.
Caroline began crying.
“That’s him.”
Emily’s stomach tightened.
David said, “What happened to Rebecca?”
“I never saw her again.”
“Did you report her missing?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The police said she left voluntarily.”
“She didn’t.”
“No.”
Caroline stood.
“There’s something else.”
She returned with an old cardboard box.
Inside were letters.
Photographs.
And a cassette tape.
“Rebecca mailed this to me the morning she disappeared. I received it two days later.”
David held the cassette.
“You never listened?”
“I did.”
“What’s on it?”
Caroline looked at him.
“Your father.”
They found a cassette player in a closet.
Thomas Blackwood’s younger voice filled the room.
Rebecca’s voice came next.
Angry.
Terrified.
“You can’t take my baby.”
“I’m trying to protect him.”
“From who?”
“From Eleanor.”
A long silence.
Then Thomas said:
“If she learns what I changed in the trust, none of us are safe.”
The recording crackled.
Rebecca whispered:
“What did you change?”
Thomas answered.
David leaned closer.
But the tape distorted.
May you like
Only four final words came through clearly.
“David inherits Halcyon too.”
