Chapter 6 - The Doctor Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Detective Shaw enlarged the photograph.
Dad leaned closer.
“That’s him.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
I studied the man.
White hair.
Thin shoulders.
Wire-framed glasses.
I had seen him before.
Not in person.
In an old photograph from the day I was born.
Mother held me in a hospital bed.
Dad stood beside her.
Behind him was the same doctor.
Malcolm Reeves.
“What if the date stamp is wrong?” Daniel asked.
Shaw shook her head.
“The footage came directly from a municipal traffic camera.”
Dad whispered, “Then he didn’t die.”
“Maybe someone wanted people to think he did,” Shaw said.
She left the room to make calls.
Twenty minutes later, she returned.
Malcolm Reeves had not died.
Not legally.
A death notice had appeared in a local newspaper twenty years earlier, but no state death certificate existed.
No burial record.
No Social Security death record.
Nothing.
The obituary had been submitted privately.
The person who paid for it?
Helen Morgan.
Dad laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“What else did she erase?”
That afternoon, police located Reeves.
He was seventy-eight.
Living under his middle name in a retirement community outside Charlottesville.
He agreed to speak voluntarily.
Shaw did not allow us inside the interview.
We waited nearly two hours.
When she returned, she looked tired.
“He confirmed Charles Whitaker is your biological father.”
I nodded.
It barely moved me anymore.
Dad squeezed my shoulder.
“What else?”
Shaw sat.
“Reeves helped conceal the paternity result.”
“Why?”
“Helen paid him.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“He also admitted the obituary was part of an agreement to distance himself from the family after a dispute.”
“What dispute?”
“Charles.”
“What about him?”
“Whitaker had begun using information Reeves provided to pressure Helen.”
“Blackmail?”
“Yes.”
“What information?”
Shaw looked at me.
“Your birth records.”
My stomach tightened.
“So Charles blackmailed my mother over being my father?”
“Partly.”
“What was the other part?”
“There was another child.”
Rebecca’s baby.
I knew before Shaw said it.
“Rebecca’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
Shaw hesitated.
“The child may not have died when Rebecca was told she did.”
Nobody moved.
I whispered, “What?”
Dad sat forward.
“Say that again.”
Shaw chose each word carefully.
“Reeves claims Rebecca delivered a premature but living baby girl six years ago.”
My skin went cold.
“He was there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Helen contacted him privately.”
“Where did Rebecca give birth?”
“A private clinic.”
“Why was she told the baby died?”
“He says Helen demanded it.”
Daniel stared.
“Why?”
Shaw looked down at her notes.
“Helen believed Rebecca was emotionally unstable and that the child’s paternity would destroy the family.”
I nearly laughed.
Helen feared scandal enough to steal her own daughter’s baby.
“What happened to the child?”
“Reeves says he doesn’t know.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“Charles Whitaker.”
The room shifted again.
Rebecca’s lost daughter.
Mother’s obsession.
First grandchild.
Family order.
What if Lily was not supposed to replace a dead baby?
What if Mother knew Rebecca’s daughter was alive?
“What did Charles do?”
“Reeves claims Charles arranged the child’s placement.”
“Adoption?”
“Possibly.”
“Legal?”
“No.”
Dad stood.
“My God.”
I thought of Rebecca.
For the first time since the fire, I felt something other than rage toward her.
Not forgiveness.
But horror.
She had lost a baby.
Except maybe she had not.
Mother had taken her.
Then spent six years convincing Rebecca that I had somehow stolen the place her daughter should have occupied.
“Does Rebecca know?”
“Not yet.”
“Tell her.”
“We will.”
“I want to be there.”
Shaw shook her head.
“This is a criminal investigation.”
“She is my sister.”
“She also participated in what happened to your daughter.”
“I know.”
I looked at Lily sleeping in Daniel’s arms.
“I’m not forgetting that.”
That evening, Rebecca asked to speak with me.
Shaw advised against it.
I insisted.
We met in a monitored interview room.
Rebecca entered wearing the same blush-pink dress from the party.
Someone had given her a gray sweatshirt to wear over it.
Her hair was tied back.
She looked exhausted.
For once, she looked like my sister instead of Mother’s perfect daughter.
She sat.
I did not.
“You knew Mom planned to take Lily.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
“You knew about the papers.”
“Yes.”
“The sedative?”
Her face changed.
“No.”
“Do not lie.”
“I’m not.”
“You blocked me at the fire.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
She started crying.
I felt nothing.
“Why?”
“Mom said she was going to scare you.”
“She threw my baby.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You said, ‘You caused this.’”
Rebecca covered her face.
“I thought she was going to hold Lily over the pit and make you admit what you did.”
“What I did?”
“Had her.”
I stared.
“You thought I owed you an apology for giving birth?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“I wasn’t well.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
She lowered her eyes.
I sat across from her.
“Rebecca, your daughter might be alive.”
Her head snapped up.
I watched disbelief become anger.
“What?”
“The baby you delivered six years ago.”
“Stop.”
“Malcolm Reeves says she was born alive.”
“Stop.”
“Mom lied to you.”
Rebecca stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“No!”
An officer opened the door.
I raised one hand.
“I’m okay.”
Rebecca stared at me.
“Who told you this?”
“The police.”
“No.”
“Charles knows where she went.”
Her entire face collapsed.
For several seconds, no sound came out.
Then she whispered, “Mom said she died in my arms.”
My anger cracked.
Not disappeared.
Cracked.
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“They sedated me.”
Of course they did.
Rebecca grabbed the edge of the table.
“I woke up and Mom said she was gone.”
“Did you see her?”
“A blanket.”
“A face?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
She started sobbing.
“I never saw her face.”
There it was.
The wound Helen had used to control my sister for six years.
I still remembered Rebecca blocking me.
I still remembered Lily in the air.
Compassion did not erase responsibility.
But truth could hold two things at once.
Rebecca had helped terrorize me.
Rebecca had also been terrorized.
She looked at me.
“If she’s alive—”
“We have to find Charles.”
Rebecca wiped her face.
“I know where he might go.”
I stood.
“What?”
“He has a place near Lake Anna.”
“Address?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how does that help?”
“I’ve been there.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“With him?”
“With Mom.”
My pulse jumped.
“Why?”
“She said we were meeting someone who knew about my baby.”
“Who?”
Rebecca stared toward the dark observation window.
“She never let me see them.”
“What do you remember?”
“A red house.”
“What else?”
“A dock.”
“What else?”
She closed her eyes.
“A wind chime shaped like a sailboat.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Wait.”
Her eyes opened.
“There was a mailbox.”
“What number?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Rebecca.”
“I don’t.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples.
Then froze.
“What?”
“The road.”
“What road?”
She looked at me.
“Mercy Lane.”
Police found three roads named Mercy Lane within sixty miles of Lake Anna.
Only one had a red house with a dock.
Detective Shaw sent officers immediately.
They arrived just after midnight.
The house was empty.
But there were signs someone had left recently.
Food in the refrigerator.
A warm coffee machine.
A suitcase missing from a closet.
And in an upstairs bedroom—
a child’s room.
Not a baby’s room.
A little girl’s room.
Drawings on the walls.
Books.
A pink sweater.
On a bedside table sat a framed photograph of a girl with brown hair.
She looked about six.
Detective Shaw texted the photograph to me.
My hands began shaking.
The child had Rebecca’s eyes.
On the back of the frame were two words:
FOR HELEN.
And beneath them was a name.
“Rebecca,” I whispered.
My sister looked over my shoulder.
Her knees gave way.
The little girl’s name was Grace.
Then Detective Shaw’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed immediately.
“What?”
We all watched her.
She looked at me.
Then at Rebecca.
“They found Charles Whitaker.”
“Where?”
“At a private airstrip.”
“Was he alone?”
Shaw did not answer.
Rebecca grabbed my arm.
“Was he alone?”
Detective Shaw slowly lowered the phone.
May you like
“No.”
There was a child with him.
