Chapter 5 - The Daughter Behind the Perfect Marriage
Alexander didn't return to his mansion.
He drove directly to the Fletcher residence on the Upper East Side.
Olivia insisted on coming.
Madison stayed with a trusted female security officer who had been introduced to her by name and shown where Olivia would be.
For the first time that evening, Madison looked almost relieved.
“Text me,” she told Olivia.
“I will.”
“And don't let anybody boss you around.”
Olivia smiled faintly.
“I'm working on that.”
The Fletcher townhouse stood behind iron gates and carefully trimmed hedges.
Alexander had attended Christmas parties there.
He had drunk whiskey with Martin in the library.
He had once watched Vivian Fletcher organize a charity auction while wearing a diamond necklace that could have paid for an entire apartment building.
He had never seen a child living in the house.
As far as Alexander knew, the Fletchers had no children.
That was about to change.
Vivian answered the door herself.
She was in her early sixties, elegant, silver-haired, and wearing a cream-colored sweater.
Her smile disappeared when she saw Olivia.
For one second, she looked like she had seen a ghost.
Then she stepped backward.
“No.”
Alexander watched her carefully.
“Vivian, we need to talk.”
She looked at Olivia again.
“My God.”
Olivia crossed her arms.
“Do you know me?”
Vivian's eyes filled.
“I knew your mother.”
“Rebecca?”
Vivian shook her head.
“Margaret.”
Olivia felt the words like a blow.
Alexander stepped inside.
“Where's Martin?”
“He's not here.”
“Where's your daughter?”
Vivian went completely still.
Alexander had dealt with frightened people before.
He recognized the difference between someone preparing a lie and someone desperately trying to keep an old wound closed.
Vivian was doing the second.
“Please,” she whispered. “Not in the doorway.”
She led them into a sitting room.
A family portrait hung above the fireplace.
Martin and Vivian stood beside a young woman with dark hair and pale gray eyes.
The woman was smiling.
She looked about twenty-seven.
Olivia stared.
The shape of the face.
The eyebrows.
The slight crookedness of the smile.
It was like looking at a photograph of herself with a different life.
Vivian followed her gaze.
“Her name is Alexandra.”
Olivia touched the silver bracelet inside her pocket.
“Alexandra Fletcher?”
“Yes.”
“Your daughter?”
Vivian nodded.
Alexander studied the portrait.
“And how old is Alexandra?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Olivia's chest tightened.
“Born June 14, 1999?”
Vivian pressed her hand against her mouth.
Then she began crying.
For several moments, she couldn't speak.
Finally, she whispered, “We were told her mother didn't want her.”
Olivia's anger rose.
“Who told you that?”
“Martin.”
Alexander moved closer.
“Where is she now?”
Vivian looked toward the window.
“She lives in Boston. She's a pediatric physical therapist.”
Olivia sat down.
Her twin sister.
Alive.
Working with children.
Living a life that Olivia had never imagined.
The relief was so sharp that it almost hurt.
Vivian reached for her hand.
Olivia pulled away.
“Did you buy her?”
Vivian recoiled.
“No.”
“Did you pay my family to take her?”
“I believed it was a lawful private adoption.”
“Then why was ten million dollars transferred?”
Vivian stared at Alexander.
“What ten million dollars?”
Alexander took out the hospital ticket.
He placed it on the coffee table.
“Martin handled a payment after the twins were born. My family believed it was ransom.”
Vivian shook her head.
“No. That's not possible.”
“Why?”
“Because we couldn't have paid anything like that.”
Alexander frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“In 1999, Martin wasn't wealthy. He was drowning in debt. His father had left him a failed investment firm and a warehouse nobody wanted.”
Olivia looked up.
“Then how did he become rich?”
Vivian seemed suddenly ashamed.
“Three months after Alexandra came home, Martin told me he'd received a major investment opportunity. He said it would change our lives.”
Alexander slowly sat down.
The missing money.
The sudden wealth.
The charitable trust.
It fit too neatly.
Martin hadn't merely stolen a child.
He had used the money intended to recover her to build his fortune.
Vivian wiped her cheeks.
“I never knew.”
Olivia studied her.
“Did you ever wonder where Alexandra came from?”
“Every day.”
“Did you ever ask?”
Vivian's face tightened.
“Of course.”
“And?”
“Martin showed me adoption documents. He said Alexandra's birth mother was seventeen and didn't want contact.”
Olivia closed her eyes.
The cruelty of it was almost unbearable.
Margaret had spent twenty-seven years grieving.
Vivian had spent twenty-seven years loving a child under false pretenses.
And Alexandra had grown up without knowing she had a twin.
Then Vivian spoke.
“I have something you need to see.”
She went to a cabinet and returned with a baby album.
The first page showed a newborn in a pink blanket.
Underneath, Vivian had written:
Our miracle, June 18, 1999.
Olivia stared at the photograph.
The baby wore a silver bracelet.
The engraving was partly hidden by the blanket.
Vivian turned the page.
Another photograph showed Martin holding the baby outside the townhouse.
He looked young.
Happy.
Proud.
There was something else.
An older woman stood behind him.
Eleanor Blackwood.
Olivia pointed.
“She was there.”
Vivian nodded.
“She came to congratulate us.”
Alexander stared at the picture.
“My mother knew.”
Vivian lowered her eyes.
“She told us Alexandra was a blessing.”
Alexander looked away.
He had wanted to believe Eleanor's cruelty came from fear.
That she was a frightened woman trapped by mistakes made long ago.
But she had stood beside the people raising Margaret's stolen child.
She had smiled for photographs.
And then gone home to tell everyone her sister-in-law had disappeared.
Vivian turned another page.
A photograph fell onto the floor.
Olivia picked it up.
It showed two babies lying side by side.
One wore the blue blanket with the white flower.
The other wore pink.
On the back was a date.
June 14, 1999.
And a handwritten note.
The girls together, before Martin came.
Vivian gasped.
“I've never seen that photograph.”
Alexander examined the handwriting.
It wasn't Margaret's.
He recognized it instantly.
His father's.
Thomas Blackwood had taken the picture.
Vivian looked confused.
“Why would Thomas have photographed Alexandra before she came to us?”
Alexander didn't answer.
Instead, he noticed something in the photograph's background.
A woman in a nurse's uniform stood near the hospital window.
Rebecca Hayes.
Beside her was a man in a dark overcoat.
Martin Fletcher.
And Martin was holding a black leather case.
Alexander had seen that case before.
It was still in Fletcher's office.
The case Martin used to carry confidential financial records.
Alexander turned the photograph over.
Near the edge, almost hidden by Thomas's handwriting, was a faint impression.
It looked like part of another message pressed into the paper.
Alexander held it beneath a lamp.
The words became visible.
ASK ELEANOR ABOUT THE NIGHT SHE CHOSE.
Vivian stared at him.
“Chose what?”
Alexander thought of his mother's strange warning.
She'll know which baby survived.
He had assumed Eleanor meant one child had died.
But both twins were alive.
So what had his mother meant?
Olivia read the words again.
Then she remembered Margaret's voice.
The way Margaret had asked about her scar.
The way Eleanor had panicked when the call arrived.
“Alexander,” Olivia whispered.
He looked at her.
“Your mother wasn't afraid Margaret would discover which baby survived.”
“What was she afraid of?”
Olivia's face went pale.
“She was afraid Margaret would find out which baby Eleanor had chosen to give away.”
At that moment, Vivian opened the back cover of the album.
A folded hospital form slid into her lap.
She read it.
Her expression changed.
“Dear God.”
Alexander reached for the paper.
At the top were the words:
MATERNAL CONSENT — INFANT TRANSFER
Below was Margaret Blackwood's name.
And a signature.
Eleanor Blackwood.
But the line identifying Eleanor's relationship to the newborn did not say Aunt.
May you like
It said:
BIOLOGICAL MOTHER.
