Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN THE FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH|
The first crack in the Hawthorne empire appeared on a Thursday morning.
A financial reporter published a story about suspicious transfers from several charities connected to Richard Hawthorne's estate. By noon, three board members had resigned, two banks had frozen pending transactions, and reporters were gathering outside the family's Manhattan headquarters.
Theodore ignored the headlines.
He had more pressing problems.
Clarissa's attorney had secured her release pending further questioning. Daniel Price had disappeared. And a private investigator had discovered that St. Catherine's Children's Trust had processed thirty-seven adoptions during the year Nadia was born.
Only eleven records remained complete.
The rest had been altered or destroyed.
Nadia returned to New York with Mila, who refused to let her sister face the scandal alone. Eleanor welcomed them into the estate, arranging rooms in the west wing and ordering the security staff to treat them as family.
Clarissa's former bedroom remained locked.
Theodore had not entered it since the confrontation in the orchid house.
That evening, Nadia found him standing in the portrait gallery, staring at a photograph of his parents on their wedding day.
“You look like him,” she said.
“People have been telling me that since I was six.”
“I don't mean your face.”
He turned.
“You mean the way I keep looking for a reason to excuse him.”
Nadia nodded.
Theodore studied the photograph.
“My father built this family by making decisions no one was allowed to question. I spent years believing that was strength.”
“And now?”
“Now I wonder how much of my life was chosen for me.”
Before Nadia could answer, Eleanor appeared at the far end of the gallery.
“I found something.”
She carried a leather album recovered from the locked workshop. Most of its pages contained photographs of the estate's employees and visitors. One image showed Margaret standing beside a woman Nadia had never seen before.
The woman was young, perhaps twenty-five, with dark hair, a small scar beneath her left eye, and a baby in her arms.
On the back, Margaret had written:
For the girl who deserved to know where she came from.
Nadia stared at the photograph.
“Who is she?”
Eleanor's face tightened.
“I don't know. Your mother never mentioned her to me.”
Theodore examined the image.
“She was at the estate?”
“Apparently,” Eleanor replied. “And she was carrying a child.”
Nadia looked closer.
The baby's wrist bore a tiny crescent-shaped birthmark.
Her own wrist had the same mark.
She slowly rolled up her sleeve.
Mila gasped.
“Nadia?”
Nadia could barely speak.
“That's me.”
Theodore took the photograph carefully.
“If this was taken before the fire, then your mother knew where you were.”
“Or she knew the woman who took me.”
Eleanor sat down.
“There is another possibility.”
They turned toward her.
Eleanor's voice was barely audible.
“What if Margaret didn't lose her daughter at the hospital? What if she agreed to the transfer because she believed it was the only way to protect her?”
Nadia shook her head.
“No. She searched for me. She spent her life looking.”
“Perhaps she was searching for someone who could tell her where you had been sent.”
A phone rang in the hallway.
Marcus answered it, listened for several seconds, and walked into the gallery.
“Mr. Hawthorne, we've located Daniel Price.”
“Where?”
“Dead.”
The word silenced the room.
Marcus continued.
“His car was found near the Connecticut border. The police believe he died in an accident, but there are signs the vehicle was tampered with.”
“Was anything recovered?” Theodore asked.
“A briefcase. Inside were adoption records, a list of payments, and a photograph of the woman in this album.”
Nadia stepped forward.
“Where is she?”
Marcus hesitated.
“That's the problem. Her name is listed as Catherine Vale.”
Nadia's face went white.
“Vale was my mother's name.”
Marcus looked down at the report.
“There's one more thing. According to the records, Catherine Vale was declared dead in the same fire as Margaret.”
Nadia looked at the photograph again.
May you like
The woman had been alive long enough to hold a baby.
And someone had gone to extraordinary lengths to erase her from history.
