Chapter 12 - THE DAUGHTER HELEN CHOSE
Helen read the message in silence.
Claire stood across from her in the protected apartment arranged by the police.
“What key?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me again.”
Helen closed her eyes.
“The brass key from the biscuit tin opened more than the station locker.”
“What else?”
“Samuel said it belonged to a deposit box. He never told me which bank.”
“Why does Adrian think Margaret has it?”
“Because Margaret took the original.”
Claire placed both hands on the table.
“What did he mean by asking which daughter you chose?”
Helen’s face crumpled.
“After Samuel discovered you were not our biological child, we searched for the baby I gave birth to.”
“You found her.”
It was not a question.
Helen began crying.
“She was living with another family.”
“Who?”
“A couple in Maine. They had adopted her through the foundation.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She was happy. Her parents loved her.”
“You chose to leave her there.”
“I chose not to destroy her life.”
“And you never told me I had a sister.”
“I was afraid you would think we loved you less.”
Claire stepped away.
Every explanation from the people around her arrived wrapped in love and sealed with betrayal.
“What is her name?”
“Rebecca.”
“Where is she now?”
“I lost contact years ago. The family moved.”
Claire showed Helen the photograph of Diane and the dark-haired woman.
“Is that Rebecca?”
Helen looked closely.
“I can’t see her face.”
“You would know?”
“I saw her only once when she was ten.”
Claire’s phone vibrated again.
This time, the message contained a short video.
The dark-haired woman turned toward the camera.
She was perhaps thirty, with green eyes and a familiar curve to her mouth.
She looked enough like Helen to make denial impossible.
“My name is Rebecca Moore,” she said. “And Claire, our father is alive.”
Helen sank into a chair.
Claire stared at the screen.
Rebecca continued.
“Samuel Reed found me three months ago.”
Claire replayed the sentence.
“Our father,” she whispered.
If Rebecca was Helen’s biological daughter, Samuel was not her biological father.
Unless the exchange story contained another lie.
Rebecca looked off camera before speaking again.
“Adrian says he can prove who Claire really is, but he needs the key Margaret hid inside Judge Hale’s grave.”
The video ended.
Nora immediately secured the cemetery.
Richard Hale’s grave appeared untouched.
Ground-penetrating equipment revealed a metal object beneath the stone but above the coffin.
Workers lifted a narrow steel case from a concealed compartment.
Inside lay a black bird ring, a bank key and an envelope addressed to Ethan.
The letter contained one sentence.
Son, when Claire learns who signed her first birth certificate, she will never forgive either of us.
Below the sentence was a signature.
Samuel Reed.
Ethan looked at Claire.
“Either your father was alive after Judge Hale died…”
“Or Samuel wrote this before his own death.”
Richard Hale had died seven years after Samuel’s supposed accident.
The envelope was only four years old.
Claire held it toward Nora.
“Test the ink.”
The detective nodded.
A second object remained inside the steel case.
A photograph of Claire as a newborn.
A woman held her in a hospital bed.
May you like
The woman was not Helen.
She was Margaret Hale.
