Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN THEY PLANNED TO BLAME
“You need to take me home before my daughter loses her mother.”
Hollis said it so quietly that Sullivan almost missed the words.
They were standing in the maintenance office, staring at the assignment Vivienne had approved.
Sullivan turned.
“Nobody is taking you away from Posy.”
“You don't know that.”
“Hollis—”
“Your aunt had my name on a forged photograph. My job has been suspended. She knows where I live, and somebody kept your sister locked in a storage room.”
Her voice broke.
“I have a little girl waiting for me.”
Sullivan closed the computer screen.
“You're right.”
Hollis looked at him.
“I am?”
“I can't promise what I don't control. But I can help make sure the police receive the actual evidence.”
He asked Dennis to preserve the original recordings and access records.
Then he drove Hollis home himself.
No chauffeur.
No entourage.
Just a dark sedan moving through Chicago streets lined with dirty February snow.
For several minutes, they rode in silence.
Finally, Sullivan spoke.
“My mother used to say that power is worthless if the people who need it are afraid to ask for help.”
Hollis watched the passing buildings.
“Was she a good mother?”
“The best.”
“Then why did your sister look so frightened when she said her name?”
Sullivan tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“I've been asking myself the same question.”
When they reached Hollis's building, Posy was waiting with Mrs. Marguerite.
The little girl flew down the hallway.
“Mama!”
Hollis knelt and caught her.
She buried her face in her daughter's hair.
For a moment, nothing else mattered.
“Did Wynn get better?”
“She's getting medicine.”
Posy looked past her mother at Sullivan.
“Who's that?”
Hollis hesitated.
“Wynn's brother.”
Posy studied the expensive coat and serious face.
“Are you Sully?”
He seemed startled.
“Yes.”
“Wynn cried for you.”
Sullivan crouched until their eyes were level.
“I know.”
Posy frowned.
“Then you should go see her.”
A strange expression crossed his face.
“I think you're right.”
Marguerite invited them inside.
Over tea, Sullivan explained what they had discovered.
He didn't hide the bruises, the locked room, or the altered photograph.
Marguerite listened without interrupting.
Then she looked at him.
“You've got a great deal of money, young man.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Money can hire people to watch doors. It cannot make them decent.”
Sullivan accepted the rebuke.
“I understand.”
“Good. Then stop allowing other people to decide whom your sister can trust.”
Hollis almost smiled.
Marguerite had never been impressed by expensive suits.
Before Sullivan left, he offered to cover Hollis's lost wages.
She shook her head.
“I want my job back.”
“I can speak to your employer.”
“I want my name cleared first. Otherwise, I'll always be the woman who supposedly kidnapped your sister.”
He considered that.
“Then that's what we'll work toward.”
By late afternoon, the problem became worse.
Two Chicago detectives came to Hollis's apartment to interview her about Wynn's disappearance.
They were polite.
But their questions made Posy hide behind Marguerite's skirt.
Had Hollis ever met Wynn before?
Had anyone paid her to transport the girl?
Why had she taken Wynn home instead of immediately calling an ambulance?
Hollis answered each question.
She explained the bitter cold.
The breathing.
The fever.
The neighbor who had helped.
She admitted that she should have sought emergency medical care sooner.
But she refused to apologize for saving Wynn.
One detective placed a printed photograph on the table.
It was the altered hallway image.
Hollis's heart sank.
“That picture isn't real.”
“We've been told it came from building security.”
“Then someone gave you false evidence.”
She showed them the contact information for Dennis Keene and explained the retained recording.
The detectives agreed to obtain it.
They also asked to speak with Mrs. Marguerite.
She described Wynn's condition when Hollis carried her upstairs.
Her testimony was precise.
Her nursing experience mattered.
And so did the fact that she had nothing to gain.
When the detectives left, Posy crawled into Hollis's lap.
“Mama, are you in trouble?”
Hollis hugged her.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Did you do a bad thing?”
“No.”
Posy thought about that.
“Then why were they asking?”
Hollis brushed hair away from her daughter's face.
“Sometimes grown-ups need help finding out what really happened.”
Posy considered the explanation.
Then she nodded.
“Like when my mitten got lost.”
“Something like that.”
“But you found it.”
Hollis kissed her forehead.
“Yes, baby. I found it.”
That evening, Sullivan returned to the hospital with the original recordings.
He showed them to Wynn.
She watched Hollis mopping alone.
Then she looked at the forged photograph.
“Aunt Vivienne planned everything.”
“Perhaps,” Sullivan said. “But we need proof of what she ordered and why.”
Wynn reached for the bedside drawer.
Inside lay the crumpled note and her damaged silver watch.
She unfolded the paper.
“Those words were mine.”
Sullivan frowned.
“What?”
“I wrote them after Aunt Vivienne told me I wasn't your real sister.”
She looked ashamed.
“I wanted to remember exactly what she said. I was afraid I'd convince myself I'd misunderstood.”
Sullivan sat down.
“Winnie—”
“She showed me an old family record. She said Mom took me in because she felt sorry for me.”
“That's not why Mom loved you.”
“Then why didn't anyone tell me?”
He looked away.
Wynn understood his silence.
“You knew?”
Sullivan didn't answer quickly enough.
Her face crumpled.
“You knew I wasn't your sister?”
“You are my sister.”
“That's not what I asked.”
He drew a long breath.
“I knew Mom had adopted you when you were little.”
Wynn pulled her hand away.
“All these years?”
“Yes.”
“Everybody knew except me?”
“No. Very few people knew. Mom wanted to tell you herself when you were old enough to understand.”
“But she died.”
“I should have told you afterward.”
Wynn turned toward the window.
For the first time, Sullivan understood that rescuing her from danger wouldn't automatically restore her trust.
He had helped create the silence Vivienne had exploited.
After several minutes, Wynn opened the foundation records she had secretly copied before her confinement.
She pointed to a column of assistance payments.
“These are supposed to be heating grants.”
Sullivan examined the entries.
Many appeared legitimate.
Others were marked with the same unusual accounting code.
ER-19.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I thought it was a vendor code.”
She scrolled farther.
The payments had continued every month.
Some were routed through a company called Lakeshore Relief Services.
The company shared an address with one of Vivienne's private holding businesses.
Then Wynn showed him the recipient name associated with the code.
ELENA REYES.
Sullivan stared.
He had heard that name before.
It belonged to a woman his mother used to speak of with unusual sadness.
He looked at the date attached to the original account.
Nineteen years earlier.
Wynn touched the initials on the back of her watch.
E.R.
“Sully?”
He slowly turned toward her.
“The woman receiving these payments,” Wynn whispered. “Who is she?”
Sullivan looked at the record again.
May you like
His voice was barely audible.
“Elena Reyes died nineteen years ago.”
