Chapter 5 - SIX WEEKS BEFORE BIRTH
The date on George's authorization changed everything.
A desperate grieving couple might make an unforgivable decision after losing a child.
But Patricia's baby had still been alive when George signed that paper.
So had Lydia's unborn child.
There had been no tragedy yet.
Only a plan.
Vanessa read the date again.
"August third, 1998."
Lydia nodded.
"You were born September fourteenth."
Vanessa looked at George.
"Why would you authorize replacing my records before I existed?"
George stared at the fireplace.
"That document is not what it appears to be."
"Then tell me what it is."
"A preliminary legal form."
"For stealing a baby?"
Patricia stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor.
"Nobody stole you."
Vanessa laughed in disbelief.
"Then what word would you prefer?"
Patricia's voice cracked.
"We saved you."
Lydia went completely still.
Vanessa stared at the woman who had raised her.
"From what?"
Patricia glanced at Lydia.
"From poverty."
The cruelty of the answer was almost casual.
Lydia's face folded for a second.
Then she straightened.
Vanessa looked as if Patricia had slapped her.
"You took me because she was poor?"
"We gave you everything."
"That isn't an answer."
"Private schools."
"Mom."
"Travel."
"Stop."
"A home she could never have given you."
"Stop!"
Vanessa's voice shook the room.
Patricia did not stop.
"Do you think love pays tuition?"
Lydia whispered.
"No."
Patricia turned.
Lydia's eyes were wet but steady.
"But poverty does not make a mother surrender ownership of her child."
Patricia sneered.
"Ownership?"
"You know what I mean."
"I know you were nineteen, unmarried, working laundry shifts, and sleeping in a room above a diner."
Vanessa looked at Lydia.
"You were nineteen?"
Lydia nodded.
"And your father was dead before I knew I was pregnant."
I frowned.
"Who was he?"
Lydia hesitated.
George finally turned from the fireplace.
"Don't."
That one word made me look at him differently.
Lydia did too.
"Why?"
George's jaw flexed.
"Because this is already out of control."
"Whose control?"
He ignored me.
Lydia looked at Vanessa.
"Your father's name was Daniel Holloway."
Vanessa swallowed.
"Holloway."
"Yes."
"So he was related to the company?"
"He was the founder's only son."
George moved toward the window.
Ethan looked from Lydia to me.
"Holloway Industrial Patents."
"Exactly."
Lydia sat down.
Her hands had begun trembling again.
"Daniel was twenty-two when we met."
"Was he rich?" Vanessa asked.
Lydia gave a sad smile.
"His father was."
"Was Daniel?"
"He hated the money."
George muttered.
"Convenient story."
Lydia looked at him.
"You hated that he hated it."
Vanessa's eyes narrowed.
"You knew my father?"
George did not answer.
Lydia did.
"They were business partners."
The room seemed to shrink.
"George and Daniel?"
"For less than a year."
"Doing what?"
"Daniel's father, Samuel Holloway, owned patents used in industrial cooling systems."
Ethan looked at me.
I knew the name.
I had known it for decades.
Samuel Holloway had once sat across from my late husband at our kitchen table.
I had been thirty-one.
Thomas Carter had been trying to build a manufacturing division from almost nothing.
Samuel had been older, brilliant, impatient, and deeply suspicious of banks.
Then he disappeared from our lives after a failed merger.
I had always been told the deal simply collapsed.
Now I wondered what else Thomas had never told me.
Lydia continued.
"Daniel believed George was helping him create a licensing company."
"Was he?" Ethan asked.
"No."
She looked at George.
"He was helping himself."
George laughed.
"You were a teenager."
"I could read."
"You understood nothing about those contracts."
"Daniel did."
That silenced him.
Vanessa leaned forward.
"What happened to Daniel?"
Lydia's face changed.
"He died in a car crash."
"When?"
"January of 1998."
Vanessa counted silently.
"Eight months before I was born."
"Yes."
"Was it really an accident?"
Lydia looked at George.
George exploded.
"Enough."
He slammed his hand against the mantel.
"I will not stand here while a convicted thief implies I killed my friend."
Lydia did not flinch.
"I did not say you killed him."
"You wanted everyone to think it."
"No."
Her voice was quiet.
"I wanted everyone to wonder why Daniel called me from your office forty minutes before he died."
George went pale.
Vanessa stood.
"What did he say?"
Lydia closed her eyes as if she could still hear the call.
"He said he had found something in the licensing books."
"What?"
"He wouldn't tell me over the phone."
"What else?"
"He told me to go to my sister's house and not tell anyone where I was."
"Did you?"
"No."
Lydia looked down.
"I thought he was being dramatic."
She rubbed her palms together.
"An hour later, the police came to the diner where I was working."
Vanessa's face had gone very still.
"And six weeks before I was born, George signed a paper involving my identity."
Lydia nodded.
"Yes."
Ethan looked at George.
"Why?"
George sat down for the first time all evening.
He looked older in the chair.
"Because Samuel Holloway changed his will."
Patricia snapped toward him.
"George."
He ignored her.
Vanessa whispered.
"What will?"
George looked at her.
For the first time, I saw something close to genuine regret in his face.
"Samuel blamed me for Daniel's death."
"Did he have a reason?"
"No."
"Then why?"
George rubbed his forehead.
"Because grief needs a target."
Lydia laughed bitterly.
"And greed needs paperwork."
George stared at her.
Then he continued.
"Samuel discovered you were pregnant."
Vanessa's breath caught.
"He knew about me?"
"He knew there was a child."
"Did he know Lydia?"
"Barely."
Lydia interrupted.
"He came to see me twice."
George's eyes flashed.
"You never told me that."
Lydia almost smiled.
"You never asked."
Vanessa looked at Lydia.
"What did my grandfather say?"
"He apologized for judging me."
Lydia's voice softened.
"Then he told me Daniel had been right about George."
George stood again.
"This is fiction."
Lydia reached inside her cardigan.
"Then you'll enjoy this."
She removed a second folded paper.
George stopped.
"Samuel gave me a copy of a codicil."
I knew enough estate law to understand the word immediately.
A codicil could change a will without replacing the entire document.
"What did it say?" Ethan asked.
Lydia unfolded it.
"If Daniel's child was born alive, she would inherit the controlling interest in Holloway Industrial at age thirty."
Vanessa looked toward me.
"The trust."
"Yes."
Lydia nodded.
"Until then, the shares would be held by an independent trustee."
"Martin Voss?"
"Originally."
George's eyes dropped.
Vanessa noticed.
"Originally?"
Lydia pointed to the last paragraph.
"If the child died before age thirty, control would transfer to the secondary beneficiary."
Ethan asked the obvious question.
"Who was that?"
Lydia looked at George.
"George Mitchell."
Vanessa stood completely still.
No one needed to explain it now.
If Grace Holloway died, George inherited.
If Grace Holloway vanished legally and another identity replaced hers, the trust could be manipulated without anyone knowing where the beneficiary had gone.
But George had not killed the child.
He had done something more patient.
He had raised her inside his own house.
Vanessa whispered.
"You kept me close."
George's face tightened.
"We raised you."
"You kept me close to my own money."
"That is not what happened."
"Then what happened?"
He looked at Patricia.
She looked away.
That was the first time George seemed truly alone.
"Patricia couldn't have more children after the delivery."
Vanessa stared at him.
"So you took me."
"It wasn't that simple."
"It sounds very simple."
"Your mother was grieving."
"Which mother?"
The question cut him.
Vanessa pointed toward Lydia.
"The one whose baby you stole?"
Then toward Patricia.
"Or the one whose dead child you replaced?"
George had no answer.
My phone vibrated again.
This time it was my investigator, Nora Reed.
I stepped into the hallway and answered.
"Tell me you found Martin Voss."
Nora was breathing hard.
"I found his last known residence."
"And?"
"It's empty."
"How long?"
"Neighbors say three days."
I closed my eyes.
"Did he know we were looking for him?"
"Probably."
"Anything left behind?"
There was a pause.
"A safe was open."
"Empty?"
"Almost."
"What was inside?"
Nora lowered her voice.
"A photograph of Thomas Carter."
My chest tightened.
"My husband?"
"Yes."
"Why would Martin Voss have a photograph of Thomas?"
"That's not the problem."
I gripped the phone.
"What is?"
"The photograph was taken in 1998."
"So?"
"Thomas is standing beside George Mitchell and Samuel Holloway."
I looked back through the library doors at my son.
Nora continued.
"And on the back, someone wrote three words."
"What words?"
May you like
She answered.
"All three knew."
