Chapter 8 - Emily
"Emily died before I was born."
"That's what your mother told everyone," Arthur said.
"What does the amendment say?"
"That your father received credible information that Emily may have survived the night she was declared dead."
"That's impossible."
Noah didn't say anything. He knew better.
Arthur scanned the document and sent it to me.
My father wrote that the hospital had been chaotic the night Emily was admitted. A private nurse arranged the transfer of an unidentified infant to another facility. The paperwork disappeared.
Years later, my father found a ten-thousand-dollar payment.
From my mother to that nurse.
"What was the nurse's name?" I asked.
"Ruth Calder."
Ruth Calder had died five years ago.
But her obituary listed one daughter.
Megan Calder.
A social worker two hours away.
Noah wanted to call the police first.
"Do not contact Megan alone," he said.
"We won't."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Noah and I drove to Megan's office the next morning with Ross following in an unmarked car.
Megan was forty-something, with tired eyes and a silver streak in her hair.
When I showed her Ruth's name, she went pale.
"I wondered if this day would come."
My heartbeat changed.
"You knew my father?"
"No."
"My mother?"
"Yes."
Noah leaned forward.
"How?"
Megan closed her office door.
"My mother confessed something before she died."
I gripped the chair.
"About a baby named Emily?"
She nodded.
"Your mother brought the baby to her after midnight."
My vision narrowed.
"Alive?"
"Yes."
The room tilted.
Megan kept talking.
"She said the child had stopped breathing, then started again. Your mother panicked. She didn't want an investigation."
"What happened to Emily?"
"My mother arranged an illegal private placement."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
I stood.
"You have to know something."
Megan looked at me with tears in her eyes.
"I know the name the baby was given."
She opened an old notebook.
"Anna Calder."
Noah stared at the page.
May you like
Megan swallowed.
"And Claire... Anna is still alive."
