Your parents were gone.
The road was blocked.
I made a decision.”
“You made a report.”
“I made sure you lived.”
Katherine quietly pointed to the next sentence in Beatrice’s note.
We will call her Evelyn.
Henry says no one can ever know.
My throat closed.
“Did Beatrice know who I was?”
“She is your mother.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Henry’s breath sharpened through the speaker.
“You are upset.
You are surrounded by strangers who want something from you.
There is money involved, isn’t there? They told you about the Montgomery estate.”
I looked at Katherine.
Until that moment, no one had mentioned the trust during the call.
Henry already knew about it.
“How long have you known about the money?” I asked.
“I knew there were lawyers looking for the missing child.
That has nothing to do with why we raised you.”
Wyatt wrote something on a legal pad and turned it toward me.
KEEP HIM TALKING.
“Why didn’t you adopt me?”
Henry’s answer came too quickly.
“There were complications.”
“What complications?”
“The state would have taken you.
You would have been placed with strangers.”
“My biological family spent twenty-three years searching for me.”
“You don’t know those people.”
“Neither did you.”
The words left my mouth before fear could stop them.
Henry’s controlled tone vanished.
“I pulled you out of twisted metal with fuel spilling across the road.
I heard you crying while everyone else stood around waiting for equipment.
Do not speak to me as though I was some criminal.”
Wyatt circled the sentence on his pad.
Henry had just placed himself at the wreckage with the missing infant.
I closed my eyes.
“You were a police officer.”
“I was the reason you had a life.”
“You were the reason I lost my name.”
For the first time, Henry sounded uncertain.
Then his voice changed again.
“Come home alone, Evelyn.
We can explain everything.”
“I’m not coming alone.”
“Then understand this.
Josephine has destroyed this family.
If she has given those investigators anything else, she will answer for it.”
The threat was quiet, almost gentle.
Felix ended the call before I could respond.
A moment later, Wyatt was speaking into his own phone, alerting officers assigned to protect Josephine.
