Chapter 9 - The Baby in the Photograph
The photograph was dated nineteen years earlier.
Vanessa would have been twenty-one.
Ethan examined it under a lamp. The infant wore a hospital bracelet, but the writing was too small to read.
Helen remembered Evelyn visiting the Bennetts shortly afterward.
“She said a young mother had been pressured to surrender a child.”
“Vanessa?” Mara asked.
Helen nodded.
“Evelyn wanted to help her.”
Ethan could barely reconcile the image with the woman who had hurt Mara.
Mara was more careful.
“Having suffered doesn’t excuse what she did.”
“No,” Ethan agreed.
“But it might explain why Mom kept investigating her.”
They contacted the investigator and turned over the photograph. Records eventually showed that Vanessa had given birth to a daughter and signed adoption papers under pressure from Gregory, who controlled her finances at the time.
The daughter had grown up in Ohio under a different name. She was now an adult. Police did not disclose her identity to Ethan and Mara, and neither tried to locate her.
“That’s her story to tell,” Mara said.
Ethan agreed.
Meanwhile, the foundation case advanced. Ruth testified about the false invoices. Agnes supplied records proving Winter Harbor House never received the promised funds. Several board members admitted they had ignored warnings.
Charles resigned.
Ethan and Mara were appointed temporary family representatives, but they insisted an independent committee oversee the recovery.
On December twenty-second, nearly a year after the Christmas Eve assault, Mara visited Winter Harbor House’s new building. Volunteers hung paper snowflakes in the windows. A little boy carried a box of donated mittens twice the size of his arms.
“Where do these go?” he asked.
Mara pointed toward a table.
“Right there. Thank you for helping.”
The boy smiled.
Ethan watched from the doorway.
“You’re good at this.”
“I’m learning.”
“You shouldn’t have had to learn it the hard way.”
“No. But I’m here.”
They served dinner together that evening. Agnes made turkey. June burned the rolls. Ben played Christmas music from an old radio that crackled whenever someone walked past it.
For the first time in years, Mara wore something other than a uniform to a Christmas gathering: a dark green dress she had chosen herself.
Ethan raised a glass of sparkling cider.
“To Evelyn.”
Mara shook her head.
“To the people who finally get their shelter back.”
Everyone drank.
At ten, the investigator called.
Gregory Voss had been arrested after returning to the United States under a false name. He was cooperating in exchange for consideration from prosecutors.
“He says he has information about Evelyn’s death,” the investigator said.
Ethan stepped into the hallway.
“What information?”
“He claims someone paid him to interfere with her car.”
“Who?”
“He won’t give a name until his attorney finalizes the agreement.”
Mara joined Ethan.
“Don’t let him turn this into a game.”
“I won’t.”
The investigator added one more detail.
Gregory claimed the person who paid him was not Charles.
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Vanessa?”
“We don’t know yet.”
When the call ended, Mara noticed a small package on the shelter’s front desk. It had been delivered during dinner.
No return address.
Inside was a porcelain Christmas angel with one wing broken.
Beneath it lay a photograph of Evelyn taken on the morning she died.
May you like
Someone had written across the back:
SHE KNEW ABOUT THE THIRD CHILD.
