# CHAPTER 7## THE WOMAN BEFORE ME
The address led to an abandoned rehabilitation center outside Valparaiso, Indiana.
The property had once belonged to Meridian Residential Management.
Police arrived shortly after noon.
Rosa Alvarez was found alive inside a locked staff apartment.
She was dehydrated, frightened, and suffering from a head injury, but she was conscious.
The woman mentioned in the note was not there.
Officers discovered signs that someone else had occupied a room in the building for an extended period.
A bed.
Women’s clothing.
Prescription bottles.
A Bible.
Several handwritten pages.
The name on the medication bottles was Anna Whitaker.
I had never heard of her.
When Detective Bell told me, my first thought was that Anna might be a distant relative.
A cousin.
An aunt.
Someone from my father’s side of the family.
Then Lydia sat down very slowly.
“Anna,” she whispered.
“You know her?”
She looked at me as though she had seen a ghost.
“Anna Whitaker was Richard’s first wife.”
My father had never mentioned being married before my mother.
“First wife?”
“They married when they were twenty-one.”
“What happened?”
“Evelyn said Anna left him.”
“My mother knew her?”
Lydia’s laugh held no humor.
“They were friends.”
The room seemed to shift.
“Tell me everything.”
Lydia looked toward Detective Bell.
He closed the door.
“Anna and Evelyn met in college,” Lydia began. “Anna was quiet and brilliant. She studied accounting. Richard met her through Evelyn.”
“My mother introduced them?”
“Yes. They married quickly.”
“How long?”
“About five years.”
“Then what?”
“Anna inherited money from her parents.”
I felt cold.
“How much?”
“I don’t know. Enough to buy a house and start a business.”
“What kind of business?”
“A bookkeeping company. Richard worked with her.”
“Did he take control?”
“Eventually.”
The pattern was older than I was.
“What happened to Anna?”
“She disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Richard said she emptied their accounts and left with another man.”
“Was there a divorce?”
“Yes. He filed on the grounds of abandonment.”
“Did Anna appear in court?”
“No.”
“How can someone get divorced without the other spouse present?”
“Through substituted service and default proceedings.”
My father was an accountant.
He understood documents, notices, addresses, and signatures.
“What happened to her money?”
Lydia shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Then Dad married Mom.”
“Two years later.”
“Did anyone look for Anna?”
“Her sister did. She came to our house once. Evelyn refused to speak to her.”
Detective Bell took notes.
“Name of the sister?”
“Catherine Hale.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
A doctor entered to adjust my dialysis treatment, forcing the conversation to pause.
While the machine ran, I stared at the ceiling and imagined a woman named Anna.
Young.
Quiet.
Brilliant.
Married to my father.
Connected to my mother.
Inheriting money.
Then disappearing.
Had my parents done to her what they were trying to do to me?
Control her accounts.
Replace medication.
Declare her incompetent.
Place her in a facility.
Take everything.
At three fifteen, Detective Bell received an update from Indiana authorities.
Rosa was stable enough to speak briefly.
She said Melissa Kane had forced her into the transport vehicle by threatening to report Rosa’s undocumented nephew to immigration authorities.
Rosa herself was a United States citizen, but her nephew’s status was unresolved.
Melissa drove her to the abandoned center.
My father arrived later.
He demanded the location of the copied recordings.
Rosa refused to tell him.
He struck her and locked her inside the apartment.
“Did she send the email?” I asked.
“No. She gave the memory card to someone before she was taken.”
“Who?”
“She refused to identify the person until she knows they are safe.”
“And Anna?”
“Rosa says she saw an older woman living at the center several months ago.”
“Was the woman a patient?”
“She was kept in a locked section.”
“By whom?”
“Rosa saw your father visiting her.”
My chest tightened.
“Did Rosa hear her name?”
“The woman called herself Annie.”
Anna Whitaker.
Alive.
Possibly held in a closed facility connected to my father.
“Where is she now?”
“Unknown.”
Detective Bell removed the memory card from the envelope.
The hospital provided a secure computer not connected to the main network.
The first recordings captured financial discussions between my parents.
Some were recent.
Some dated back years.
My mother complained about bills.
My father explained how to move funds without triggering bank alerts.
Connor demanded money.
Melissa discussed my appointments and medical records.
Then we reached a file labeled ANNA_03.
My father’s voice played first.
“You should have signed when I gave you the chance.”
A woman answered.
Her voice was thin but steady.
“You said the same thing the night you took my company.”
My father sighed.
“You were ill.”
“You made me ill.”
Lydia closed her eyes.
On the recording, Anna continued.
“You replaced the medication Dr. Levin gave me.”
“That is not what happened.”
“You told everyone I was unstable.”
“You were unstable.”
“You locked me away.”
“We found you appropriate care.”
“For thirty-two years?”
No one in my hospital room moved.
Thirty-two years.
Almost exactly my age.
My father spoke again.
“You should be grateful. Evelyn wanted you gone.”
“What did she do with my daughter?”
Every sound inside me disappeared.
My hand tightened around the bed rail.
On the recording, my father said nothing.
Anna repeated the question.
“What did Evelyn do with my baby?”
Lydia stood.
“Maya.”
I could not look at her.
The woman on the recording began crying.
“My daughter was alive. The nurse told me she was alive.”
My father’s voice became cold.
“You were confused.”
“I held her.”
“You suffered a psychiatric episode.”
“I named her Maya.”
The room tilted.
The machines blurred.
Aunt Lydia reached for me, but I pulled away.
“No.”
“Maya, breathe.”
“No.”
On the recording, Anna said my name again.
Not as a stranger.
Not as someone asking about another child.
As a mother.
My father had been married to Anna.
Anna had given birth to a daughter named Maya.
Anna had been locked away for thirty-two years.
And Evelyn—the woman I had called Mom my entire life—might not have been my mother at all.
The recording ended.
Detective Bell stopped the next file from playing.
No one knew what to say.
Finally, Lydia whispered, “Evelyn was never pregnant.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“She told everyone she had been. But she left Chicago for almost a year after Richard’s divorce. When she returned, she had you.”
“Why didn’t you question it?”
“She said she stayed with friends in California during the pregnancy.”
“Did you ever see her pregnant?”
“No.”
“Did Grandma?”
“I don’t know.”
My entire childhood rearranged itself.
No hospital pictures of my mother holding me.
No pregnancy photographs.
No birth story that remained consistent.
Sometimes Evelyn said I arrived early.
Sometimes late.
Sometimes by emergency surgery.
Sometimes after eighteen hours of labor.
I had believed the differences were normal.
People forgot details.
Mothers exaggerated.
Families repeated stories until facts softened.
But perhaps there had never been a pregnancy.
“Get a DNA test,” I said.
Detective Bell nodded.
“We can request samples from Anna if we find her.”
“Test me against Evelyn now.”
“We need consent or a warrant.”
“She’s in jail.”
“We’ll seek one.”
“And Richard?”
“You are legally recorded as his daughter, but we can test him too.”
I closed my eyes.
The woman who had attacked me might have stolen me.
The father who had calculated my death might have imprisoned my biological mother.
Every financial crime, every forged document, every false diagnosis had roots that reached back before I could speak.
Detective Bell’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, he held a recent photograph.
It had been recovered from the abandoned Indiana facility.
The picture showed an older woman sitting beside a window.
Her hair was long and silver.
Her face was thin.
But her eyes were mine.
On the back, someone had written a date from six weeks earlier.
May you like
Beneath the date were four words.
ANNA KNOWS WHERE EVELYN BURIED IT.
