Chapter 4 - The Little Girl in the Christmas Photograph
"That's not my name."
Rachel held the photograph with both hands.
She recognized the red coat.
She remembered the itchy wool collar, the wooden buttons, and the way her mother made her stand still for pictures.
But she had never seen this photograph.
And she had certainly never been called Elizabeth Lancaster.
Eleanor sank into a chair.
Nathaniel crouched beside Rachel.
"Are you sure that's you?"
Rachel nodded.
"I was about seven. My mother bought that coat at a church sale. She saved it for Christmas."
Mason examined the photograph.
"That's the year Father opened the pediatric recovery center."
Rachel looked at him.
"Why would my name be Lancaster?"
Eleanor spoke so softly they almost missed it.
"Because Thomas wanted it that way."
Nathaniel straightened.
"What does that mean?"
Eleanor looked toward Caleb, who stood under guard near the doorway.
"Your father was trying to give Margaret and her children a new identity."
Rachel's fingers tightened around the frame.
"Why?"
"Because someone threatened them."
Caleb laughed without humor.
"Now she remembers."
Eleanor ignored him.
"Margaret came to Thomas after discovering irregularities at the recovery center. Patients were being transferred without proper authorization. Families were being charged for treatments they hadn't received."
Rachel's face went pale.
"My mother never told us that."
"She was afraid."
"Of whom?"
Eleanor looked at Caleb again.
Nathaniel noticed.
"Mother, stop looking at him. Answer Rachel."
Eleanor swallowed.
"Of Adrian Vale."
The doctor who had treated Thomas after his stroke.
The doctor whose medication orders had been changed.
The doctor Mason accused of knowing Caleb for fifteen years.
Rachel lowered the photograph.
"Then why didn't you tell the police?"
Eleanor's voice became sharp.
"Because it wasn't that simple."
"People always say that when they're protecting themselves."
Eleanor flinched.
Rachel immediately regretted how cruelly she had spoken.
Then she remembered standing coatless in the snow.
She didn't apologize.
Mason took the photograph from her.
"There's something else."
He pointed toward the background.
Behind the Christmas tree stood a dark-haired man holding a small wrapped present.
Caleb Shaw.
But beside him was another person.
A woman with long blonde hair.
Rachel frowned.
"Who's that?"
Nobody answered.
Nathaniel moved closer.
He knew the woman.
"That's my aunt Vivian."
Eleanor's younger sister had died twelve years earlier after a long illness.
Vivian had never married.
She had worked as the foundation's financial director before retiring.
"Why is she in the picture?" Nathaniel asked.
"She helped organize the Christmas program," Eleanor replied.
Mason turned the frame over.
A handwritten number appeared beneath the photograph.
2417\.
The same four digits pressed into Thomas's note.
Rachel whispered, "Your father wrote those numbers."
Mason looked toward the ceiling.
"The blue room."
Nathaniel shook his head.
"We've already searched it."
"Not the room."
Mason pointed to the photograph.
"The date."
Nathaniel examined the picture.
December 24, fifteen years earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
Room 2417. Keep the children together.
Rachel looked confused.
"What children?"
Eleanor began crying.
Nathaniel had seen his mother furious, elegant, disappointed, and cold.
He had almost never seen her cry.
"Margaret wasn't the only person who had children at that center," Eleanor whispered.
"Then tell us."
"I can't."
Nathaniel stared at her.
"You can."
Eleanor looked toward Rachel.
"Your mother made me promise."
Rachel stepped closer.
"My mother died thinking nobody would protect us. Whatever she made you promise, I deserve to know."
Eleanor pressed a hand against her mouth.
Then she spoke.
"Daniel wasn't supposed to be brought home."
Rachel stared.
"What?"
"When he was born, he had complications. The doctors said he wouldn't survive without long-term medical care."
Rachel remembered her brother as a small child.
His leg braces.
The hospital visits.
The nights her mother sat awake beside his bed.
"But he did survive," Rachel said.
"Because Margaret refused to give up."
Eleanor nodded.
"Yes."
"Then what does that have to do with the foundation?"
"Thomas arranged treatment. Vivian paid for it through a special account."
Rachel felt the floor shift beneath her.
"Why would they do that?"
Eleanor looked at Mason.
Mason lowered his eyes.
"Because Daniel wasn't simply another patient."
Nathaniel waited.
Mason continued.
"He was part of the original research program."
Rachel stepped backward.
"Research?"
"An experimental rehabilitation program," Mason explained. "Patients were offered treatment that hadn't been properly approved. Some improved. Others were permanently injured."
Rachel shook her head.
"Daniel's spine was damaged during a childhood procedure."
Mason nodded.
"That's what Father finally told me."
Rachel couldn't speak.
For years, she had believed her brother's condition came from complications he was born with.
Now she was hearing that the surgery intended to help him might have caused his injuries.
Eleanor approached her.
"Margaret found out after Daniel's second operation. She tried to stop the program."
Rachel looked at her.
"And you knew?"
"I knew some things. Not everything."
"You knew enough."
Eleanor lowered her head.
"Yes."
Nathaniel felt the anger rising.
"You let us raise money for those clinics every Christmas."
"Because the legitimate patients still needed treatment."
"And that made everything else acceptable?"
"No," Eleanor whispered.
Caleb finally spoke.
"Thomas approved the program."
Mason turned toward him.
"After you falsified the safety reports."
"That's not what happened."
"Then why did Margaret disappear from the foundation's records?"
Caleb didn't answer.
Rachel looked at the photograph again.
Her mother seemed so young.
So happy.
A woman who had believed she was doing something good.
Rachel suddenly noticed a small object around her mother's neck.
A silver necklace shaped like a snowflake.
She remembered it.
Her mother wore it every day.
After her death, the necklace disappeared.
"Where's her necklace?"
Eleanor looked up.
"What?"
"The snowflake. She never took it off."
Eleanor went still.
"Vivian kept it."
"Why?"
"She said Margaret asked her to."
Mason stared at Eleanor.
"Vivian didn't die with it, did she?"
Eleanor shook her head.
"No."
"Where is it?"
Eleanor rose slowly.
"In Thomas's study."
Nathaniel escorted her upstairs.
Rachel insisted on coming.
Inside the study, Eleanor opened a locked cabinet.
She removed a velvet jewelry box and handed it to Rachel.
Rachel recognized the necklace immediately.
Her mother's initials were engraved on the back.
M.C.
With trembling fingers, she opened the delicate clasp.
A narrow strip of folded paper had been tucked inside the hollow pendant.
Nathaniel carefully unfolded it.
May you like
The message contained one sentence in Margaret's handwriting.
"If anything happens to me, ask Thomas why he signed Daniel's death certificate."
