Chapter 12 - THE MOTHER WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD|
Eleanor Callaway arrived at the estate before noon.
She had spent the previous night under a doctor's care after the revelation in the ballroom. Her blood pressure had risen dangerously, and her physician had insisted she avoid stress. She ignored him the moment Catherine called.
When she entered the conservatory and saw the photograph, she stopped breathing for a second.
"Where did you get this?"
Julian handed it to her.
Eleanor touched Margaret's face with trembling fingers.
"My daughter."
Nomi watched her carefully.
"You were told she died."
"Yes."
"But she was alive three years ago."
Eleanor nodded slowly, tears sliding down her cheeks.
"I searched for her for twenty-three years. I hired investigators, contacted hospitals, and visited every clinic connected to the fire. Each time, someone told me the records had been destroyed."
She looked at Catherine.
"Did you know?"
"I saw her once. I was afraid to ask questions."
Eleanor turned toward Nomi.
"Your mother was stubborn, brilliant, and far braver than I was. She would have crossed an ocean to find you."
Nomi's eyes filled.
"Then why didn't she?"
Eleanor lowered her head.
"Because someone made sure she couldn't."
She explained that Margaret had discovered the original trust agreement shortly before the clinic fire. It contained evidence that Richard Ashcom had altered the ownership of several properties and transferred assets away from the Callaway family.
Margaret had intended to take the documents to an attorney.
Instead, the clinic burned, the baby was declared dead, and Margaret disappeared.
For years, Eleanor believed her daughter had been killed.
Three years ago, she received a tip about an unidentified woman treated at a private hospital. The surgeon's report described an old scar matching the injury sustained by the child in the clinic fire.
Eleanor traveled to the hospital, but the patient had left before she arrived.
The medical drawing was all she had.
"I was too late again," she whispered.
Nomi reached for the older woman's hand.
"You don't know that."
Eleanor looked at her in surprise.
"I'm standing here," Nomi continued. "Maybe you were too late before. But you're not too late now."
Eleanor began to cry.
For a moment, Nomi felt the pull of something she had never experienced: the possibility that the woman sitting beside her might be family.
But she could not surrender to it without answers.
"Where is my mother now?"
Eleanor shook her head.
"I don't know."
Julian examined the photograph again.
The hospital corridor looked familiar. He recognized the tiled wall and the distinctive brass handrail from the medical center where his father had funded a private recovery ward.
He turned the image over.
A date had been written on the back.
Three years earlier.
Beneath it was an address in Boston.
Nomi stared at the writing.
"That's where I was staying when I was attacked."
Julian looked at her.
"What?"
"I was working in Boston. Someone broke into my apartment. I remember waking up in a clinic with a bandage on my back. The nurse told me I'd been found outside a warehouse."
Eleanor gripped her hand.
"Do you remember who attacked you?"
Nomi shook her head.
"I remember a man calling me by another name."
"What name?"
She closed her eyes.
"Margaret."
The word seemed to change the air in the room.
Julian rose and went to the window.
"If someone knew your real identity three years ago, the attack may not have been random."
Nomi looked toward the photograph.
"Who would want to hurt me?"
Eleanor's voice was barely audible.
"Someone who believed you had the original trust."
Catherine suddenly stood.
"There is something I haven't told you."
Everyone turned.
Catherine opened her handbag and removed a folded document.
"Richard kept a second record of the clinic fire. I found it after he died. It says that the girl was transferred to a private residence before the fire began."
Nomi's blood ran cold.
"Who took her?"
Catherine looked at Julian.
"The record carries your father's signature."
Then she turned toward Nomi.
"But it also carries the signature of the woman who received the child."
She laid the page on the table.
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At the bottom, in elegant handwriting, was the name:
Vivian Sinclair.
