Chapter 7 - Before Sadie Was a Mercer
Officer Ortega took photographs of Harlan’s phone and initiated a trace request.
The number was prepaid and recently activated.
No immediate subscriber information.
Dana advised Harlan not to respond.
He agreed.
Wesley read the second message three times.
Ask your son how Sadie really came into his family.
“What does that mean?” Harlan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Think carefully before you answer.”
“I don’t know.”
Harlan studied him.
Wesley looked genuinely frightened.
But fear did not always mean innocence.
Sometimes it meant remembering something you had spent years trying not to examine.
“How did you first hear about Sadie?”
Wesley frowned.
“You know.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Maren’s friend knew a foster parent.”
“Name?”
“Rachel Dunning.”
“And?”
“Rachel told Maren there was a little girl likely to become eligible for adoption.”
“Before termination?”
“Yes.”
Harlan’s instincts sharpened.
“That isn’t unusual by itself.”
“I know.”
“What happened next?”
“We applied for foster-to-adopt certification.”
“And Sadie was placed with you when?”
“About three months later.”
“Which agency handled it?”
“County placement.”
“Worker?”
Wesley hesitated.
“Lena Foster.”
The name struck Harlan.
He knew Lena.
Not well.
But enough.
She had been a junior caseworker during his final year in the department.
She left suddenly.
Harlan had heard she moved to another state.
“Did you know I worked with her?”
“Maren did.”
Harlan turned.
“How?”
“She found out after Sadie was placed.”
“Did Lena know Maren before the placement?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think?”
Wesley shook his head.
“No.”
Dana stopped them.
“This conversation is moving into an area that may require a separate investigation. I don’t want family members conducting interviews among themselves.”
Harlan nodded.
She was right.
But the message had already opened a door in his memory.
Three years earlier.
Sadie at age five.
Quiet.
Watchful.
A little girl who carried a stuffed rabbit everywhere and hid crackers under her pillow for months after moving in with Wesley and Maren.
Everyone had assumed the food hoarding came from foster instability.
Maybe it had.
Harlan remembered attending the adoption hearing.
Maren crying.
Wesley holding Sadie.
The judge smiling.
Harlan had believed the story was beginning somewhere safe.
Dana asked Wesley for all records he could locate regarding the adoption.
Wesley laughed bitterly.
“Maren took the folder.”
“Digital copies?”
“Maybe.”
“Emails?”
“Yes.”
Dana requested them.
By seven that evening, Wesley was searching an old email account while Harlan prepared soup for Sadie.
She sat at the kitchen island drawing.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“Is Daddy staying here?”
“No.”
“Is Maren?”
“No.”
Sadie relaxed.
Harlan noticed.
“What are you drawing?”
“A house.”
There were two people standing beside it.
Harlan and Sadie.
No Wesley.
He did not comment.
Sadie added a tree.
Then she said, “Can I ask something?”
“Always.”
“If parents adopt you, can they un-adopt you?”
Harlan turned off the stove.
“Why are you asking?”
Sadie kept drawing.
“Maren said sometimes people change their minds.”
The spoon stopped in Harlan’s hand.
“When did she tell you that?”
Sadie shrugged.
“She says it when I make her too upset.”
Harlan sat across from her.
He kept his voice even.
“Sadie, being adopted does not mean you have to earn your place every day.”
She looked at him.
“Then why does she say I should be grateful?”
He searched for words that would not poison Sadie against anyone, would not coach or interpret, but would still tell the truth.
“Adults sometimes say things they should never say.”
“Did my first mom change her mind?”
There it was.
The question beneath everything.
Harlan had heard the official story.
Sadie’s biological mother could not safely care for her.
Parental rights had been terminated.
Sadie had been told an age-appropriate version.
“I don’t know everything that happened with your first mom.”
“Maren says she didn’t want me.”
Harlan went very still.
“Who told you that?”
“Maren.”
“When?”
“A lot.”
“Has your dad said that?”
Sadie shook her head.
Harlan looked toward the dining room.
Wesley was standing there.
He had heard.
His face looked devastated.
Sadie followed Harlan’s gaze.
“Daddy.”
Wesley walked in slowly.
“That wasn’t true.”
Sadie’s brows drew together.
“What?”
“I never told Maren your birth mother didn’t want you.”
“She said you both knew.”
“I didn’t.”
Sadie looked between them.
“Then did she want me?”
Wesley sat down.
His voice trembled.
“I don’t know.”
For the first time in years, Harlan saw genuine honesty between father and daughter.
It was painful.
Incomplete.
But honest.
Sadie returned to her drawing.
Wesley walked back toward the laptop.
A few minutes later, he called Harlan and Dana over.
“I found something.”
An email from three years earlier.
Sender: Lena Foster.
Recipient: Maren Mercer.
Date: six weeks before Sadie had officially been placed with Wesley and Maren.
Harlan stared at it.
The email subject read:
Regarding S.
The body was short.
I cannot discuss the case through this address. Please stop contacting me directly. All placement decisions must go through the agency.
Dana leaned closer.
“Did Maren ever tell you she contacted Lena before Sadie’s placement?”
Wesley shook his head.
“No.”
Another search found an earlier email.
This one from Maren to Lena.
No response attached.
Harlan read it twice.
I understand confidentiality. Rachel told me enough. We are prepared to give this child the kind of home her current situation cannot provide. Please keep us in mind before relatives complicate the process.
Harlan felt cold.
“Relatives?”
Dana immediately wrote down the date.
Wesley whispered, “I never saw this.”
The next email was worse.
Maren to Lena again.
You said the maternal aunt had been ruled out. Is that final? We need certainty before we keep rearranging our lives.
Dana stopped scrolling.
“Do you know of a maternal aunt?”
Wesley shook his head.
“No.”
Neither did Harlan.
Officially, they had always been told no suitable relatives were available.
Wesley leaned back.
“Oh God.”
Harlan looked at him.
“What?”
“There was a woman.”
“Who?”
“At the adoption hearing.”
Harlan remembered a crowded hallway.
Families.
Attorneys.
Caseworkers.
A woman crying near the elevator.
He had assumed she belonged to another case.
Wesley continued.
“She stared at Sadie the whole time.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“No. A deputy made her leave.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Harlan closed his eyes.
The memory sharpened.
Brown hair.
Yellow sweater.
A woman with a face he had seen somewhere before.
He stood suddenly.
Dana looked up.
“What is it?”
“I know that woman.”
“From where?”
Harlan searched thirty years of cases in his memory.
Then the name surfaced.
Not Sadie’s mother.
Someone else.
A teenager from one of Harlan’s final investigations.
A girl who had testified against her own stepfather.
A girl named Evelyn Cross.
He whispered the name.
Dana wrote it down.
Wesley stared at him.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know yet.”
His phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
A new photograph appeared.
This one was older.
Printed on glossy paper.
It showed Sadie at perhaps four years old, sitting on the lap of a brown-haired woman.
The woman from the courthouse.
May you like
On the back of the photograph, visible because someone had photographed both sides, were handwritten words:
Sadie and Aunt Evie, two weeks before they took her.
