Chapter 5 - THE CHILD WHO DISAPPEARED
Rachel read Carlo’s sentence three times.
None of the words improved.
Gabriel sat completely still.
Victor was the first to speak.
“His own son?”
Samuel nodded weakly.
“The child Elena gave birth to.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You’re saying Daniel was Anna’s baby.”
“Yes.”
“And my father put Daniel in my mother’s arms.”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened to Elena’s child?”
Samuel’s hands shook.
“That is the part I spent twelve years trying to learn.”
Gabriel pushed Carlo’s note across the table.
“You had this.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Seven years.”
“And you let me believe you were dead.”
Samuel lowered his head.
“I was afraid.”
Gabriel stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“My mother died without telling me. Daniel died without telling me. You hid for twelve years. Victor lied for eight. Everyone was afraid.”
His voice finally rose.
“And somehow I’m the only one who wasn’t allowed to be.”
Nobody answered.
Rachel looked at Gabriel.
She could see anger.
But beneath it was something more difficult.
Grief for an identity he had never questioned until tonight.
She quietly removed his tuxedo jacket from her shoulders and held it toward him.
He frowned.
“You’re cold.”
“So are you.”
For one second, something human passed through his face.
He took the jacket.
Not to wear it.
He placed it across the chair beside him.
A strange little truce.
Victor picked up Carlo’s note.
“If Carlo removed Elena’s baby, why keep Daniel?”
Samuel said, “Because Daniel was his child too.”
Victor looked sick.
“So Gabriel and Daniel were half brothers.”
Samuel nodded.
Gabriel looked toward the dark window.
“And my mother unknowingly raised my father’s child with another woman.”
“Yes.”
Rachel asked the question no one else had.
“Where did Carlo take Elena’s baby?”
Samuel looked at her.
“I originally believed he left him at Saint Agnes Children’s Home.”
Gabriel turned.
“Originally?”
“Daniel proved he didn’t.”
Another answer.
Another opening.
Samuel went to a cabinet.
He returned with a child’s drawing.
The paper was faded and folded down the center.
A house.
Two stick figures.
A black car.
And a boy in a blue coat.
In the corner someone had written:
MICHAEL, AGE 6.
Gabriel stared.
“Who is Michael?”
Samuel pointed to the boy.
“That may have been Elena’s biological son.”
Rachel felt the weight of it.
“He lived to six?”
“At least.”
“How did Daniel find this?”
“He traced one of Carlo’s old payments.”
Samuel tapped the drawing.
“Carlo paid a woman named Evelyn Price every month for nearly seven years.”
Victor frowned.
“A foster mother?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was Carlo’s housekeeper before Elena.”
Gabriel looked sharply at him.
“My father gave my mother’s baby to an employee?”
Samuel nodded.
“Evelyn left Philadelphia three days after the hospital incident.”
“Where?”
“Baltimore.”
“And Michael?”
“Went with her.”
Gabriel rubbed both hands over his face.
Rachel could almost see the calculation happening.
A living brother?
A stolen life?
A child raised elsewhere because Carlo wanted to bury evidence of an affair?
Gabriel looked at the drawing again.
“Why Michael?”
“Evelyn’s husband was named Michael. He died before the child arrived.”
Victor turned the paper over.
There was writing on the back.
An address.
And one additional note.
Blue coat purchased Christmas 1994.
Rachel noticed something else.
A tiny symbol drawn above the front door.
A cross inside a circle.
She pointed.
“What’s that?”
Samuel looked closer.
“I never noticed.”
Victor did.
His face hardened.
“I have.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Where?”
“On Cross Foundation property records.”
Rachel stared.
“Cross?”
Madeline.
Victor nodded.
“The Cross family used that symbol on charitable housing buildings in the nineties.”
Suddenly Madeline’s role stopped looking accidental.
Gabriel asked, “Was Evelyn connected to the Cross family?”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said.
Victor took out his phone, then stopped himself.
“No calls.”
Gabriel agreed.
“No electronic trail until we understand who is still watching.”
Rachel looked down at the drawing.
“Maybe Madeline isn’t hunting this because she wants your money.”
Gabriel glanced at her.
“What else?”
“Maybe she’s cleaning up something her family did.”
Victor stared.
“That would explain Elena’s warning.”
If Gabriel announces a marriage to a Cross, move Samuel.
Madeline’s surname had not frightened Elena because of romance.
It had frightened her because of history.
Samuel suddenly looked toward Gabriel.
“There’s one thing I never understood.”
“What?”
“When Daniel came to see me, he already knew about Evelyn.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Then why come here?”
“He wanted Carlo’s note.”
“Why?”
“He said someone had contacted him.”
“Who?”
Samuel shook his head.
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
Victor looked at the ticket he had preserved all these years.
“The day before he died.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel’s face became unreadable.
“You think Daniel was killed.”
“I think Daniel found somebody who didn’t want him asking about Evelyn Price.”
Rachel remembered Madeline’s fear when Gabriel questioned her.
Her cruelty had been deliberate.
But fear had been there too.
“Madeline knows something.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“And she’s going to tell me.”
Samuel shook his head.
“She may not know the whole truth.”
“How would you know?”
“Because of what she said before she left.”
Rachel leaned closer.
“What did she say?”
Samuel took a breath.
“She said, ‘My father promised this ended with Daniel.’”
Gabriel stared.
Madeline’s father.
Richard Cross.
A respected businessman who had died five years earlier.
Victor said, “Richard sat on the board of St. Matthew’s.”
Margaret’s earlier warning suddenly made sense.
The Cross family had access.
Connections.
Records.
Gabriel turned to Rachel.
“Your sister.”
Rachel’s stomach dropped.
“What about her?”
“Madeline threatened her because she assumed you had found something in my mother’s room.”
“Yes.”
“She may still go after her.”
Rachel stood.
Gabriel was already reaching for Victor’s keys.
They drove back toward Philadelphia before two in the morning.
Halfway there, Rachel’s phone finally connected to a stable signal.
Twelve missed calls.
All from her younger sister, Emily.
Rachel immediately called.
Emily answered on the first ring.
“Rachel?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m at school. Why are there two giant men outside my dorm?”
Rachel nearly cried from relief.
“Gabriel sent security.”
Emily was silent.
Then:
“Rachel, what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That usually means something terrible.”
Despite everything, Rachel laughed once.
“I’ll explain.”
“There’s something else.”
Rachel’s smile disappeared.
“What?”
“A woman came here before the guards.”
Gabriel looked over.
Rachel put the phone on speaker.
“What woman?”
“She said she knew Dad.”
Rachel froze.
Their father had been dead for two years.
“What was her name?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“What did she want?”
Emily hesitated.
“She gave me something.”
Rachel’s mouth went dry.
“What?”
“A blue coat.”
Gabriel turned sharply.
Emily continued.
“It’s really old. Child-size.”
Rachel stopped breathing.
“And there was a photograph in the pocket.”
“Emily, don’t touch anything else.”
“Too late.”
“What photograph?”
A rustle.
Then Emily spoke quietly.
“It’s Dad.”
Rachel felt the blood leave her face.
“Dad?”
“As a little boy.”
Rachel gripped the phone.
“How do you know?”
“He wrote on the back.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
Emily read the faded handwriting aloud.
Michael Bennett, age six. Christmas 1994.
Nobody in the car spoke.
Rachel stared at Gabriel.
Samuel had said Elena’s missing son may have been renamed Michael.
Rachel’s father had been named Michael Bennett.
And suddenly the mystery was no longer only Gabriel’s family.
May you like
It was hers.
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