Chapter 14 - Forty-Seven Letters
Matthew stared at his mother across the consultation table and felt every instinct in him demand a simpler answer than the one he had received.
"The order to make Anne disappear" could mean many things in a family that preferred euphemisms to guilt.
Matthew no longer had patience for euphemisms.
"What did you sign?"
Victoria's hands trembled against the tabletop.
"A private security directive."
"For what?"
"Surveillance, relocation assistance, communication monitoring, and access control."
Matthew felt sick.
"You made that sound like office administration."
"That is how Richard wrote it."
"What did it actually do?"
Victoria closed her eyes.
"It put people around Anne."
"To protect her?"
Victoria did not answer.
"To frighten her."
"Yes."
Matthew pushed away from the table.
"You signed an order to terrorize a pregnant woman."
"I believed Richard when he said no one would touch her."
"You believed the man who had already framed her for theft."
"I wanted to believe him."
"That is not better."
Victoria looked at him with tears running silently down her face.
"I know."
Matthew paced to the far wall.
"Did the order authorize following her?"
"Yes."
"Photographing her?"
"Yes."
"Blocking her from contacting me?"
Victoria hesitated.
"It authorized screening communications."
Matthew laughed without humor.
"Screening."
He turned back.
"Did it authorize intercepting letters?"
"Yes."
"Phone calls?"
"Yes."
"Coming to my building with my infant daughter?"
Victoria's face collapsed.
"I did not know about that visit until afterward."
"But your system stopped her."
"Yes."
Matthew leaned both hands on the table.
"Did it authorize violence?"
"No."
"Did it authorize the accident yesterday?"
"No."
"Did you know Richard was going to have her followed again?"
Victoria shook her head rapidly.
"No."
"Did you know Evan still had access to that old directive?"
"No."
Matthew studied her face.
For the first time since morning, he believed she was telling the whole truth.
That did not make the truth forgivable.
Detective Bell entered quietly.
He had heard the last several questions through the partially open door.
"Mrs. Sullivan, I need a formal statement about that directive."
Victoria nodded.
"I will give one."
"You understand you may be admitting to criminal conduct."
"Yes."
Matthew looked at her.
"Why now?"
Victoria's eyes lifted to his.
"Because Sarah asked me this afternoon why I was sad."
Matthew said nothing.
"I told her I had made a bad mistake a long time ago."
Victoria swallowed.
"She asked whether I had said sorry."
A tear fell onto her hand.
"I realized I had spent six years being sorry only in places where it cost me nothing."
Matthew looked away.
Bell did not soften.
"A statement will cost you something."
"I know."
"Good."
Before Victoria went with Bell, she reached into the bag a police officer had recovered from her house.
"They did not take all the letters."
Matthew stopped.
Victoria lifted a bundle tied with a faded blue ribbon.
"How many?"
"Thirty-nine are here."
"Richard took eight?"
"I think so."
Matthew stared at the bundle.
The envelopes were worn at the corners.
Several had been opened and resealed.
His name appeared on every one in Anne's handwriting.
Matthew Sullivan.
Different addresses followed as he moved from one apartment to another after his father's death.
Anne had kept track of him.
Victoria placed the bundle on the table.
"They belong to you."
Matthew did not touch them at first.
"They belonged to me six years ago."
Victoria flinched.
"Yes."
He finally picked up the first envelope.
The postmark was dated eleven days after Anne disappeared.
His fingers shook as he opened it.
The paper inside had yellowed slightly along the fold.
Anne's handwriting began with his name.
Matthew read silently.
She told him she had left because someone had threatened her father and the baby.
She told him she was pregnant.
She told him she did not believe the letter bearing his signature, but she was too frightened to risk testing whether it was real.
She told him she loved him.
She told him she would write again if she found a safe way.
Matthew stopped halfway down the page.
The words blurred.
He pressed his thumb against his eyes.
Victoria stood near the door, unable to leave and unable to stay.
"You read this?"
"Yes."
"And you kept it from me."
"Yes."
Matthew looked at the letter again.
"She told me she was pregnant in the second paragraph."
Victoria began to cry.
"I know."
"You watched me search for her."
"I know."
"You watched me hire investigators."
"Richard told me every search increased the risk."
"Risk to what?"
"To you, to Anne, to the company, to all of it."
Matthew's voice dropped.
"There is no all of it."
He held up the letter.
"There was a woman I loved and a child I did not know existed."
Victoria covered her mouth.
"Everything else was paper."
Bell quietly led her away.
Matthew remained alone with the letters.
He read the second.
Anne was seventeen weeks pregnant.
She wrote that the baby moved for the first time while she stood in a grocery store freezer aisle.
She had laughed and cried at once.
She wished he had been there.
Matthew read the third.
Anne had learned the baby was a girl.
She was thinking about the name Sarah because her father said it sounded strong without sounding hard.
Matthew read the fourth.
Anne had moved again after a man photographed her outside a clinic.
She wrote that she was afraid, but not ashamed.
Matthew read the fifth.
Sarah had been born after nineteen hours of labor.
Anne wrote the baby's weight, length, and the exact time she first opened her eyes.
Matthew had to stop reading.
He stood and walked to the small window.
His daughter had been born at 3:16 in the morning on a cold February Tuesday.
At that exact time, Matthew had probably been asleep forty miles away.
He could not know.
He had not even known there was a labor to miss.
A knock sounded behind him.
Anne stood in the doorway in a wheelchair with Dr. Kline beside her.
Matthew turned quickly.
"You should be in bed."
"He said five minutes."
Dr. Kline corrected her.
"I said three."
Anne ignored him.
Her eyes fell on the open letters.
She stopped breathing for a moment.
"She gave them to you."
"Thirty-nine."
Anne's face changed.
"There were forty-seven."
"Richard took eight."
Anne closed her eyes.
"Of course he did."
Matthew crouched in front of the wheelchair.
"Which eight matter?"
"I do not know which he took."
"Can you remember what was in all of them?"
Anne gave him a tired look.
"I remember writing them."
"Did any contain evidence?"
"Two did."
Matthew's stomach tightened.
"What evidence?"
"One had a photocopy of a transfer approval with Richard's handwritten note in the margin."
"What did the note say?"
"Keep Miller contained until beneficiary risk is resolved."
Matthew clenched his jaw.
"And the other?"
Anne looked toward the door.
"A copy of the letter Victoria showed me with your forged signature."
Matthew stared at her.
"You kept it?"
"Yes."
"Why send it to me?"
"Because I had it examined."
"By whom?"
"A retired document examiner my father knew."
"And?"
"He said the signature was reproduced from another source."
Matthew looked at the missing spaces in the bundle.
"Richard knew exactly which letters to take."
Anne nodded.
"Then he has been reading them recently."
"Or Evan told him where they were."
Anne's eyes moved to the first letter.
"Keep reading."
Matthew shook his head.
"Not while you are sitting here."
"Why?"
"Because I do not know what I am going to feel."
Anne's expression softened.
"Neither did I when I wrote them."
She reached for one envelope.
"This one was when Sarah learned to walk."
Matthew opened it.
Anne had described Sarah taking four steps toward an empty laundry basket, falling inside it, then laughing so hard she hiccupped.
She had written that Sarah had his stubborn eyebrows.
Matthew laughed once and cried at the same time.
Anne watched him.
"I hated you some days."
Matthew looked up.
"I hated you too."
"Good."
"Good?"
"It means the lie worked on both of us."
Matthew nodded.
Anne touched the edge of another envelope.
"But I never stopped hoping you would find us."
"I should have."
"You were searching inside a maze your own family built."
"I still should have."
Anne did not argue.
Dr. Kline tapped the doorframe.
"Time."
Anne began to turn the wheelchair.
Matthew stopped her with a question.
"What did you mean earlier when you said Victoria kept more than paper?"
Anne looked back.
"She kept a voice recording."
Matthew stood.
"Of what?"
"The night I signed the settlement."
"How do you know?"
"I saw her phone recording on the table."
"Why would she record it?"
"Insurance."
Anne's expression hardened.
"Your family loves insurance."
Matthew looked toward the room where Bell was taking Victoria's statement.
"Did she ever mention the recording?"
"No."
"Then she is still hiding something."
Anne nodded.
"Probably."
Matthew walked into Bell's interview room fifteen minutes later.
Victoria looked up from her signed statement.
He placed Anne's first letter on the table.
"Where is the recording?"
Victoria's face lost all color.
Bell turned toward her.
"What recording?"
Victoria stared at Matthew.
"Anne remembered."
"Yes."
Matthew leaned closer.
"Where is it?"
Victoria closed her eyes.
"I gave it to your father."
Matthew froze.
His father had been dead for three years.
"When?"
"The night after Anne left."
"What did he do with it?"
Victoria opened her eyes.
"He listened to the whole thing."
"And?"
May you like
"Then he changed his will."
