Chapter 8 - The Hand in the Mirror

I enlarged the photo until it broke into squares of color. The hand wasn't Elsie's. It belonged to an adult wearing a maroon sleeve.

Mom's favorite sweatshirt was maroon.

The crib in the picture looked empty, but someone was standing just outside the camera's main field of view. If Mom had told the agency that Mara had abandoned Elsie, why had she been in the room herself?

Mara stared at the screen. "She took the baby out of my arms at seven. Said she was going to put her down. When I followed her, she locked the nursery door."

"Locked it?"

"From the inside. She yelled that I was too worked up and should go wash my face. I went downstairs and called you. When she finally opened it, Elsie was crying and Mom was filming me."

I remembered ignoring her calls to finish work.

"I'm sorry," I told her.

"I know." Her eyes stayed on the photo. "I needed you then."

Dana came over at lunchtime. She didn't kiss the baby or ask Mara to reassure her that everything was fine. Instead she sat at our table and read the copied guardianship form without speaking. After ten minutes she looked at me.

"This isn't the packet I witnessed."

I felt cold all over. "How do you know?"

"There were three pages. I remember because Mom complained about the staples. This one has six. The page I signed had a different title. It said family contact list."

I asked her to write down what she remembered and to tell Sofia. Dana made the call while I stood in the kitchen.

Then she opened her own messages. Mom had sent her a picture on Tuesday of an overnight bag with a child's pink sweater folded on top. The caption read: ALMOST READY FOR FRIDAY.

Below it was a contact card. A man named Ray Geller, a former insurance investigator who now helped people organize legal paperwork, had been texting Mom for months. Dana said she'd seen him at their church's fundraising breakfast.

She showed me a message from him in a group thread with Mom: SHORT CLIPS ARE MORE PERSUASIVE. LEAVE OUT THE LEAD-IN.

I took a screenshot and sent it to Sofia. Dana sat very still.

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"I think Mom asked me to help steal your daughter," she said.

Before I could answer, my phone rang. A hotel front desk in Columbus was asking whether I wanted to keep a reservation made under my name for Friday night.