Chapter 3 - The Name Under the Floorboards
For most of Sunday afternoon, Natalie believed she had misunderstood him.
She asked Thomas to repeat the sentence.
He could not.
His blood pressure climbed.
Margaret demanded they stop.
By four o'clock, a visiting nurse had arrived.
Natalie returned to her apartment with the photograph, a headache and one sentence circling endlessly through her mind.
You weren't ours when we did.
She did not sleep.
At two twenty in the morning, she searched public records for Evelyn Hale.
There were too many results.
At three fifteen, she found an obituary.
Evelyn Marie Hale.
Age thirty-one.
Died October 17, 1997.
Survived by a sister, Rebecca Hale.
No children listed.
Natalie stared at the date.
She had been nine years old.
The photograph had been taken less than two weeks before Evelyn's death.
The obituary described a single-vehicle accident on County Road 18.
Natalie searched newspaper archives.
The first article was four paragraphs.
LOCAL WOMAN KILLED IN LATE-NIGHT CRASH.
A second article three days later included a detail omitted from the obituary.
Police had initially considered another passenger.
Blood had been found on the passenger-side door.
No passenger was located.
Natalie read the article four times.
At seven in the morning, Daniel Mercer arrived with coffee.
Daniel was fifty-one, silver-haired and maddeningly calm in circumstances that made everyone else panic.
He had represented Natalie for twelve years.
He had also known her father since law school.
Natalie placed the photograph in front of him.
"Have you ever heard this name?"
Daniel looked at it.
His expression changed so quickly she almost missed it.
"You have."
He leaned back.
"Where did you get this?"
"Answer me."
Daniel removed his glasses.
"Natalie."
"You knew Evelyn Hale."
"I knew of her."
"How?"
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Thomas called me Friday night."
"Before or after the plastic plate?"
"After."
"And?"
"He asked me not to discuss certain matters without him present."
Natalie stood.
"You represent me."
"Yes."
"Then start representing me."
Daniel looked toward the windows.
"Your father has been afraid of this for years."
"Of what?"
"I don't know everything."
"What do you know?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Your parents changed attorneys in 1997."
Natalie waited.
"They hired a man named Franklin Voss."
The name meant nothing.
"He specialized in guardianship matters, private adoptions, sealed family proceedings."
Natalie's stomach tightened.
"Adoption?"
Daniel raised a hand.
"I am not saying you were adopted."
"You're saying my parents hired an adoption lawyer the year I disappeared."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Natalie sat again.
Daniel pushed the photograph back toward her.
"There's something else."
He reached into his briefcase.
"I did the property search you requested."
"The house?"
"Yes."
"The transfer is valid."
"I know."
"But during the title review we found an older encumbrance."
Natalie frowned.
"How old?"
"1998."
The year after Evelyn died.
"A restriction was placed on the property preventing transfer to anyone outside something called the Brooks-Hale Family Settlement without court approval."
Natalie stared at him.
"The what?"
"Brooks-Hale."
Her own last name.
Evelyn's last name.
Together.
Natalie stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know yet. The filing references a sealed probate matter."
"Can you open it?"
"I filed an emergency request this morning."
Natalie looked toward the photograph again.
"Why would Evelyn Hale's name be connected to our house?"
Daniel's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His face tightened.
"What?"
"Your mother is at the courthouse."
"Why?"
"She filed an objection to the title enforcement."
Natalie laughed without humor.
"Of course she did."
Daniel did not smile.
"She attached an affidavit."
"And?"
"She claims the transfer you hold is invalid because Thomas lacked legal authority to sign away the property."
Natalie stopped.
"Thomas owned half the house."
"According to the current deed."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying Margaret just swore under penalty of perjury that your father never legally owned the property."
Natalie felt the room go silent.
Daniel continued.
"And if that's true, then for twenty-nine years, someone else has."
That afternoon Natalie returned to Worthington Avenue.
Margaret refused to open the door.
Thomas was sleeping.
Derek stood on the porch and told Natalie to leave.
She ignored him.
Something had been bothering her since childhood.
A loose board beneath the staircase closet.
Thomas used to forbid them from storing anything heavy there.
Natalie walked around the side of the house, entered through the laundry-room door using the emergency key still hidden behind the rain gutter and went directly to the staircase.
Derek followed.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Natalie opened the closet.
She pulled out boxes.
Shoes.
An old vacuum.
Then she knelt.
The floorboard was still loose.
Derek stared at her.
"Nat."
She lifted it.
Below was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay a metal document box.
Margaret appeared behind them.
The moment she saw it, she screamed.
"No!"
Natalie opened the lid.
Inside were dozens of old documents.
Photographs.
A cassette tape.
And a faded hospital bracelet.
Natalie picked it up.
The printed name was barely visible.
HALE, NATALIE E.
Derek whispered:
"What the hell?"
May you like
Natalie slowly turned toward Margaret.
Margaret looked as though she had been waiting twenty-nine years for this exact moment.
