Chapter 6 - The Summer Photograph That Someone Tried to Erase
"That's me," Grace repeated.
Nathaniel looked from her face to the photograph.
The little girl stood near Diane Collins, holding a yellow plastic watering can.
Her dark hair was tied into two uneven ponytails.
"How old were you?" he asked.
"Almost three, I think."
Nathaniel studied the picture again.
He was four.
Brianna was four.
Grace was nearly three.
That made no sense.
He looked at the date written on the back.
June 1989.
Then he examined the child beside Diane.
Grace followed his eyes.
"What?"
Nathaniel pointed toward the girl's shoes.
"Those are children's orthopedic shoes. You said your mother kept a photograph of you wearing shoes like these?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"In her bedroom. I brought some pictures home when she died."
Grace pulled out her phone and searched through old family photographs.
She found the image.
A little girl with dark hair wearing nearly identical shoes.
Nathaniel leaned closer.
Then Grace frowned.
"Wait."
The little girl in her photograph had a distinctive birthmark near her left eyebrow.
The child beside Diane in Elena's photograph did not.
Grace zoomed in.
"I was wrong."
Nathaniel looked at her.
"Then who is she?"
Grace stared at the little girl's face.
"I don't know."
She turned the photograph over.
There was a smudge beside the handwritten date.
Underneath, another number was barely visible.
1986\.
Not 1989.
Nathaniel sat down.
"If this was taken in 1986, the twins would have been sixteen months old."
He looked again at the children.
They weren't four.
They were toddlers dressed in carefully pressed clothes.
And the smaller girl was an infant standing with support.
Grace felt embarrassed.
"I wanted it to be me."
Nathaniel shook his head.
"We're all trying to make sense of pieces that don't fit."
Aaron entered with the specialist's preliminary findings.
"The photograph is genuine," he said. "But the date was altered. Someone wrote 1989 over 1986."
Nathaniel looked up.
"Who?"
"We don't know."
Grace touched the baby's image.
"Then who is this little girl?"
Aaron studied the picture.
"Maybe that's the question someone wanted you to ask."
Nathaniel returned to the library.
He spread Elena's photographs across the desk.
There were family birthdays, holidays, and vacations.
In nearly every picture, Elena stood slightly behind him, one hand resting protectively on his shoulder.
He had always believed her smile meant she was happy.
Now he wondered how much fear she'd hidden behind it.
Grace entered quietly.
"Can I show you something?"
She held an old notebook.
"My mother kept recipes in this. I found it in the cedar chest."
Nathaniel opened it.
The pages smelled faintly of cinnamon.
Diane had written instructions for cornbread, chicken soup, and her favorite chocolate cake.
Several pages contained notes about grocery prices.
Then Grace turned to the back.
A short entry had been written beneath a date.
June 22, 1986.
Saw my boy today. Elena promised this would be the beginning.
Nathaniel stared.
"She saw me."
Grace nodded.
"She was allowed to hold you."
The next entry was dated three days later.
Thomas says there will be no more visits. Elena is frightened. The little girl must be protected.
Nathaniel looked at Grace.
"The little girl."
Grace continued turning pages.
The next several had been torn out.
Then came another note.
If anything happens, remember the lake. Remember the third child.
Nathaniel felt something cold settle in his stomach.
"She knew about another baby."
Grace nodded slowly.
"But whose?"
Aaron found Martin in the sitting room.
For the first time since the blackout, Nathaniel went to confront him without anger in his voice.
That frightened Martin more than shouting would have.
Nathaniel placed the photograph on the table.
"Who is the third child?"
Martin stared at it.
His expression changed.
"Where did you find this?"
"Answer me."
Martin swallowed.
"Her name was Lily."
"Whose daughter?"
Martin looked away.
Nathaniel waited.
Finally, Martin said, "She was Elena's."
Grace gripped the back of a chair.
Nathaniel stared at him.
"My mother couldn't have children."
"That's what Victor told everyone."
Nathaniel felt an old, familiar anger rising.
"Another lie."
Martin nodded.
"Elena couldn't carry a pregnancy. But years after you were adopted, she learned that a younger woman in Victor's family had died, leaving a baby behind."
Nathaniel looked at him.
"Who?"
"Victor's niece, Marianne."
"Why wasn't Lily brought into our family?"
Martin shook his head.
"Because Victor had already promised something he couldn't take back."
"To whom?"
Martin's face tightened.
"Thomas Whitmore."
Nathaniel leaned forward.
"What did Thomas want?"
"Control of the family trust."
Nathaniel looked at the photograph.
Three children.
Three lives tied together by adults who treated them like bargaining chips.
"What happened to Lily?"
Martin closed his eyes.
"She was placed with another family."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Nathaniel stood.
"You're lying."
Martin looked up sharply.
"I know what you think of me. But I never knew where they sent her."
Nathaniel turned away.
Then Martin spoke again.
"Your mother Elena found out. That's why she went looking for Diane Collins."
Nathaniel stopped.
"What does Diane have to do with Lily?"
"Elena believed the children should know each other. She arranged the meeting by the lake."
Nathaniel stared at the photograph.
"And Thomas stopped it."
Martin nodded.
"He threatened to destroy Daniel Collins's remaining medical assistance if Diane contacted either child again."
Grace felt tears burning her eyes.
Her father had spent years struggling to walk.
Her mother had spent years trying to support him.
And now Grace understood why Diane had never tried publicly to find her lost children.
Someone had kept a hand around the family's throat.
Later that evening, Nathaniel walked into the ballroom where the engagement party had ended in chaos.
The tables had been cleared.
The broken crystal had been removed.
But he could still picture Grace standing there, bleeding through her uniform while his fiancée called her careless.
He remembered Brianna smiling beside him.
The woman he had believed he would marry.
The woman who might be his twin sister.
And the woman who had deliberately hurt their younger sister.
He sat down heavily.
Grace found him there.
"I thought you'd be in the study."
"I needed somewhere quiet."
She sat beside him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Nathaniel said, "When Elena died, I promised myself I'd never let anyone take something from me again."
Grace looked at him.
"Is that why you became like Victor?"
Nathaniel didn't answer immediately.
Finally, he nodded.
"I thought power meant safety."
"Did it?"
He looked around the enormous empty ballroom.
"No."
Grace folded her hands.
"My mother used to say people aren't safe because someone powerful owns the house. They're safe because the people inside won't hurt them."
Nathaniel looked at her.
"She sounds like a good woman."
"She was."
Grace's voice trembled.
"I wish you'd known her."
Nathaniel reached across the table.
After a moment, Grace took his hand.
The next morning, Aaron returned with an update that changed everything.
He had located Charles Russell.
The elderly attorney had checked into a private medical facility after suffering a minor stroke.
He was recovering, but weak.
Nathaniel went to see him immediately.
Russell lay in bed beside a window, his left hand resting on a folded blanket.
When Nathaniel entered, the attorney began crying.
"I should have called you years ago."
Nathaniel sat beside him.
"Then tell me now."
Russell looked at Grace, who had accompanied him.
"Diane's daughter?"
She nodded.
"I'm Grace."
Russell closed his eyes.
"You look like her."
Nathaniel leaned forward.
"What did my father do?"
Russell opened his eyes.
"Victor helped arrange an adoption he knew wasn't lawful. But he wasn't the one who started it."
"Thomas Whitmore?"
Russell nodded.
"Thomas controlled the hospital administrator and the money. Victor wanted a son. Thomas wanted a daughter."
"And Lily?"
Russell struggled to swallow.
"She complicated everything."
"How?"
"Victor's niece Marianne left a considerable inheritance to her daughter. Thomas wanted access to it."
Nathaniel looked up.
"Through the trust?"
"Yes."
Russell pointed toward the folder beside his bed.
"Read the original agreement."
Nathaniel opened it.
Inside was a copy of a handwritten trust amendment.
He began reading.
Then he stopped.
"This says Victor transferred assets into three separate accounts."
Russell nodded.
"One for you. One for Brianna. One for Lily."
"Where is Lily's money?"
Russell's face filled with shame.
"Thomas took control of it through forged guardianship papers."
Nathaniel turned the page.
The named trustee was Martin Hale.
But the most devastating discovery came on the final page.
A bank withdrawal record from eleven years earlier.
The exact year Victor died.
The amount was staggering.
Forty-two million dollars.
Nathaniel looked at Russell.
"Where did the money go?"
Russell's voice shook.
"That money was supposed to belong to Lily."
"Where is she?"
Russell reached for Nathaniel's hand.
"Before I tell you, you need to understand something about Grace."
Grace straightened.
"What about me?"
Russell looked directly at her.
"The reason Brianna was told to keep you away from those documents wasn't simply because you worked in the house."
He swallowed.
"Your mother left you something before she died."
Grace stared at him.
"What?"
Russell pointed to the old blue sweater resting in her bag.
"Your mother knew where Lily had been placed. She hid the only surviving address inside the sweater."
Nathaniel picked up the garment.
Grace looked confused.
"We searched the collar."
Russell shook his head.
"Not the collar."
He pointed toward the sleeve.
"Inside the left cuff."
Grace carefully opened the folded seam.
A narrow strip of paper slipped out.
It contained a woman's name and a Massachusetts address.
Then Grace read the name.
Lillian Mercer.
May you like
And beneath it, in Diane's handwriting:
MY DAUGHTER. PROTECT HER FROM THOMAS.
