Chapter 7 - THE DAUGHTER NO ONE MENTIONED
I was sure the note was meant to provoke me.
Thomas and I had only two children.
Sarah and David.
We had spent almost four decades together, and there had never been another daughter.
Helen looked less certain.
She asked whether Thomas had ever lived elsewhere before we met.
He had grown up in Illinois, then spent several years working in Colorado.
We met when he was twenty-eight.
Helen produced the name of a woman listed in an old court record: Marianne Bell.
She was not accusing Thomas of anything.
She had filed a paternity action that was dismissed without a final finding when the parties agreed to private testing.
No result was attached.
The record was dated months before our wedding.
I felt the ground shift beneath my chair.
"Did he know?" I asked.
"We don't know," Helen replied.
I insisted we find Marianne before reaching conclusions.
David found a published obituary for her, dated twelve years earlier.
It named a surviving daughter, Elise Mercer.
E.M.
The initials in Thomas's hidden file.
Elise could have been a former bookkeeper and someone connected to his past.
Neither fact proved a family relationship.
But that night I remembered how Thomas used to drive to Colorado every autumn for what he called inventory inspections.
I had never questioned him.
I hated myself for wondering whether every trip had been a lie.
Helen obtained an email address for Elise through a professional directory.
I wrote a careful note asking for a conversation about Thomas's financial records.
The reply came less than an hour later.
I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, MARGARET.
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO WARN YOU SINCE BEFORE HE DIED.
Then a second message appeared.
May you like
DO NOT TRUST HELEN PRICE.
