Chapter 10 - The Woman Who Remembered
Tobias pulled Nora through a service exit while Rosalind crouched behind stacked hymnals. Garrett entered the corridor seconds later. From the darkness she saw his phone light up.
“She's getting nervous,” he said into it. “Find her son.”
Rosalind felt sick. He had just accepted a paper boat from that child.
Outside, Nora led them to a modest apartment above a laundromat. She shut the blinds and put her son in his bedroom with headphones.
“Your mother was held at a private clinic for six weeks,” Nora said. “I worked there nights. The records called her Jane Morrow.”
“What happened to her?”
“She escaped. I helped her reach a bus station. I never heard from her again.”
Rosalind held her coffee without drinking. “You let us believe she was dead.”
“I was afraid. I am still afraid.” Nora slid an envelope across the table. “She left this with me in case her children ever came looking.”
Inside was a photograph of Evelyn, gaunt but alive, standing outside a mountain roadside diner. On the back: If they say I died, ask why the river never gave me back.
There was also a bank deposit slip stamped with a town name: Briar Glen.
Tobias studied the slip. “We can go at first light.”
“No,” Rosalind said. “We go now.”
Nora warned them that Vance controlled surveillance cameras across the county. She offered a borrowed car and the name of a lawyer, Denise Carter, who had once represented Evelyn.
Before they left, Nora touched Rosalind's sleeve. “One more thing. Penelope isn't pregnant with Garrett's child.”
Rosalind stared. “How could you possibly know?”
“Because three months ago, I took her to the clinic when she fainted. I heard the doctor ask why she was still using her late husband's frozen embryos.”
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Penelope had never told anyone she'd been married.
And Rosalind had no idea who that husband was.
