Chapter 4 - THE SECOND DAUGHTER
“Then who was she?”
Claire's question hung between them.
Richard Bennett stood beside the hospital window, looking twenty years older than he had three days earlier.
“Daddy,” she said again. “Who was the other little girl?”
He pulled a chair close to the bed.
“Her name was Anna.”
Claire waited.
“Your mother and I took her into our home for six months when you were eight.”
Claire shook her head.
“I don't remember another little girl.”
“You were away with your grandmother for most of that summer.”
“Why?”
Richard took a long breath.
“Anna's mother worked for us. She was very young. She became seriously ill, and Elizabeth insisted we help.”
Claire looked at the photograph.
“Was Anna your child?”
Richard's eyes filled.
“No.”
“Then why did Mom write that you had to protect both girls?”
“Because I promised her I would.”
He looked toward the floor.
“And I failed.”
Richard explained slowly.
Anna's mother, Margaret Mercer, had worked as a bookkeeper for one of his earliest investment companies.
When Margaret became ill, Elizabeth arranged medical care and temporary housing for her infant daughter.
Margaret recovered enough to reclaim Anna.
But shortly afterward, she uncovered financial misconduct at the company.
Money had been transferred through accounts in her name without her knowledge.
“She came to me,” Richard said.
“And?”
“I believed my chief financial officer when he told me she'd stolen it.”
Claire stared.
“You accused her?”
“I authorized an investigation.”
“Was she guilty?”
“No.”
Richard's voice dropped.
“She was innocent.”
Margaret lost her job.
She lost her apartment.
And her name appeared in financial reports that made finding new employment almost impossible.
Elizabeth argued with Richard for weeks.
She believed Margaret.
He hadn't.
“Mom tried to help her?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Richard looked at the photograph.
“Your mother arranged for a private investigator to collect evidence. She was going to confront me with it.”
Claire remembered the funeral.
Black umbrellas.
A closed casket.
Her father holding her so tightly she couldn't breathe.
“Then Mom died.”
Richard nodded.
Elizabeth had suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage during a medical emergency.
The investigation stopped.
The misconduct was quietly attributed to a former executive who had already left the country.
Margaret received a modest settlement.
Richard convinced himself the matter had ended.
“Did you ever check on Anna?”
“No.”
Claire stared at him.
“Why not?”
Richard's voice cracked.
“Because every time I thought about that family, I remembered how badly I'd failed your mother.”
Claire turned away.
“That's not an answer.”
“I know.”
Owen had remained silent throughout the conversation.
Now he placed another photograph beside the first.
It was recent.
A blonde woman standing outside a private women's clinic.
Paige Mercer.
Claire looked from one photograph to the other.
“No.”
Owen nodded.
“Paige is Anna.”
Claire stared at him.
“Paige Mercer is the baby Mom wanted protected?”
“Her legal name was changed from Anna Margaret Mercer to Paige Anna Mercer when she was nineteen.”
Claire felt the room shift.
Paige wasn't a stranger who had entered Richard's company by chance.
She was the child of the woman Richard had ruined.
And Elizabeth Bennett had once tried to save her.
“Does Dad know?”
Richard answered.
“I didn't recognize her.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You hired her.”
“She joined through our communications division five years ago. I didn't know her connection to Margaret.”
Claire felt anger rising.
“You never even looked.”
Richard lowered his eyes.
“No.”
A terrible thought struck her.
“Did Paige know who she was when she came to work for you?”
Owen nodded.
“We believe so.”
Claire looked toward the window.
The woman who had set her on fire had grown up carrying a grievance against her father.
Grant had found that grievance.
And turned it into a weapon.
That afternoon, Claire received permission to hold Rose for the first time.
The nurse settled the small baby against her chest, carefully protecting Claire's burns.
Rose weighed just over four pounds.
She smelled like clean cotton and warm milk.
Claire touched her cheek.
“Hello, little love.”
Rose opened one eye.
Claire smiled.
“Your grandfather is making a mess of everything.”
Richard stood near the doorway.
Claire glanced toward him.
“But we're going to teach him better.”
Richard approached slowly.
“May I?”
Claire hesitated.
Then she nodded.
He touched the baby's tiny fingers.
Rose curled her hand around his thumb.
Richard began crying.
“I won't fail you,” he whispered.
Claire watched him.
Promises mattered less to her now.
Actions would have to come first.
The following morning, a prosecutor named Rebecca Sloan met Claire in a hospital conference room.
She was fifty-two, direct, and plainly unimpressed by the Bennett family's wealth.
“The attempted murder investigation is active,” she explained. “But your husband's defense team has already challenged the interpretation of the security footage.”
Claire stared.
“How can they challenge it?”
“The angle doesn't clearly show what was in his hand when he touched your gown.”
“The liquid was on the dress.”
“Yes. Forensic testing supports the presence of an accelerant. We're still establishing who applied it.”
“And Paige?”
“Miss Mercer has requested an interview.”
Claire stiffened.
“With me?”
“With investigators first. She claims Grant deceived her about the substance and the intended effect.”
Claire remembered Paige's lighter.
Her trembling hand.
The moment she threw it.
“She's still responsible.”
Rebecca nodded.
“She is.”
“But?”
“But Grant may have constructed the situation to make her both the attacker and the only person legally accountable.”
Claire thought of Anna.
A baby her mother had once held.
A girl Richard had forgotten.
A woman who had nearly killed her.
“What does she want?”
Rebecca opened her folder.
“She says there's a second plan.”
Claire felt cold.
“What kind?”
“One involving your daughter.”
Later that evening, Owen discovered that Grant had requested access to Rose's hospital records through an intermediary.
The request had been rejected.
But it contained an attachment.
A proposed guardianship arrangement.
Claire read the summary.
In the event that she was declared medically incapable of caring for Rose, Grant would seek primary custody.
Richard would be excluded from financial decisions.
Claire stared at the page.
“He thinks he can take her.”
Owen nodded.
“He's trying to create grounds for it.”
Then Claire saw a name listed under proposed temporary caregivers.
Paige Mercer.
“That makes no sense,” Claire whispered.
“She's in custody.”
“Grant's lawyers are arguing that Paige suffered a psychological crisis induced by pressure from the Bennett family.”
Claire looked up.
“He's going to say my father drove her to it.”
“Yes.”
“And if he can blame Dad, Paige might help him.”
Owen's expression darkened.
“We found something that may explain why.”
He placed a printed medical billing record on the table.
Claire recognized the clinic name immediately.
It was the clinic where Paige had been photographed holding an ultrasound envelope.
The patient identification section was partially redacted.
But the procedure description was visible.
Claire read it.
Then read it again.
Her throat tightened.
“This isn't a prenatal visit.”
“No.”
The record showed treatment following a pregnancy loss.
The appointment had occurred eleven weeks earlier.
Long before Claire's father photographed Paige leaving the clinic.
Claire looked at Owen.
“Paige isn't pregnant?”
“According to the records investigators have obtained, her pregnancy ended months ago.”
Claire remembered Paige clutching her stomach on the balcony.
The tears.
The desperate certainty.
“He knew,” Claire whispered.
Owen didn't answer.
She looked at him.
“Grant knew she'd lost the baby, didn't he?”
Owen placed one final photograph before her.
Grant stood outside the same clinic, embracing Paige.
The timestamp was eleven weeks earlier.
Claire covered her mouth.
Then she saw the writing on the back of the photograph.
May you like
It was a note apparently taken from Paige's personal journal.
He told me Claire's baby could still be ours.
