Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
By midnight, the case was no longer just a kidnapping.
It was a resurrection.
Ortiz brought Daniel, Rachel, and Margaret to a secure interview room at the district station. Nobody trusted anybody enough to sit beside them.
"Start at the beginning," Ortiz told Margaret.
Margaret looked twenty years older than she had that afternoon.
"Thomas Vale worked for my husband, Richard."
Daniel frowned. "Dad knew him?"
"Yes."
Richard Cross had died five years earlier from a heart attack. Daniel had worshiped him: the patient father, the successful contractor, the man who taught him to ride a bike and never missed a baseball game.
Margaret folded her hands.
"Richard met Thomas through a construction job in Wisconsin. Thomas had a sister, Evelyn. She was twenty-two, unmarried, and pregnant."
"With me."
"Yes."
"Who was my father?"
Margaret hesitated.
Daniel slammed his palm on the table. "Stop doing that. Every time you hesitate, I find out my whole life is another lie."
"His name was Michael Reed."
Ortiz wrote it down.
"And what happened?"
"Evelyn planned to leave town with Michael after you were born. Then Michael disappeared. Thomas said he abandoned her. Evelyn became unstable."
"According to Thomas."
Margaret nodded painfully. "According to Thomas."
"And then?"
"Thomas came to us three days after you were born. He said Evelyn had tried to hurt you. He said social services would take you and put you into the system. Richard believed we could protect you."
"So you bought me?"
Margaret's silence answered.
Daniel stood and walked to the wall.
Rachel whispered, "Daniel..."
"Don't."
He couldn't bear comfort from anyone who had hidden things from him.
Ortiz asked, "How much?"
Margaret said, "Twenty thousand dollars."
Daniel turned slowly.
Twenty thousand.
His entire childhood suddenly had a price tag.
"And Evelyn?"
"Thomas said she died in a motel fire six weeks later."
Ortiz tapped the paused video on the monitor. "That woman would be fifty-one now. The voice could fit."
Rachel spoke. "Thomas told me Evelyn was alive. That's why I met him."
Daniel stared at her. "You knew?"
"Not for sure. He showed me a recent photo, but I thought it could be fake."
"You could've told me."
"You were about to become a father. I didn't want to destroy you with a story I couldn't prove."
"You decided that for me. Just like she did."
Rachel flinched.
Ortiz's phone buzzed. She read the message and looked up.
"The blood from the crib came back."
Daniel's stomach tightened.
"Whose?"
"Not Emma's."
He almost collapsed with relief.
"Rachel's?"
"No."
Ortiz turned her screen around.
"The preliminary match is Margaret Cross."
Everyone looked at Daniel's mother.
Margaret stared at her own hands.
There wasn't a scratch on them.
Then Ortiz said, "And according to the lab, that blood was collected and preserved weeks ago."
Daniel understood.
Someone had staged the crib.
Someone wanted Margaret blamed.
A uniformed officer opened the interview-room door.
"Detective? We found Mr. Cross's SUV."
Daniel stood.
"Rachel's car?"
The officer shook his head.
"No. Richard Cross's old SUV. The one reported stolen the night he died."
Margaret whispered, "That vehicle was never stolen."
Ortiz looked at her. "Then where has it been for five years?"
May you like
Margaret's eyes fixed on Daniel.
"With the man who killed your father."
