Chapter 11 - The Box With Daniel’s Name
The search for Margaret lasted three days.
Police tracked toll cameras.
Nathan tracked financial accounts.
Mark tracked every place his mother had ever owned.
Daniel barely spoke.
The box bothered him more than Margaret’s disappearance.
“What could she have had?”
I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Medical records?”
“Maybe.”
“Letters?”
He shook his head.
“My mother kept everything.”
Then he looked at me.
“Especially things she could use against people.”
On Monday afternoon, investigators found Jessica’s credit card charge at a motel near Lake Hamilton.
Mark and Daniel drove there with police.
I stayed behind with Lily.
Two hours later, Daniel called.
“They’re gone.”
“What about Noah?”
“No sign of him.”
“What did they find?”
“A burned trash barrel.”
My heart sank.
“Documents?”
“Probably.”
Daniel paused.
“Not all of them burned.”
Police recovered half of an old envelope.
A hospital logo remained visible.
So did Daniel’s birth date.
Nathan requested archived hospital records.
By Tuesday evening, we had another piece of the puzzle.
Daniel had been born at St. Catherine Medical Center.
So had Mark.
But Daniel’s original birth certificate listed a different attending physician from the one Margaret had always named.
The physician was still alive.
Dr. Samuel Haines was eighty-four years old.
He agreed to meet us.
Daniel and I went together.
The old doctor listened carefully.
Then he looked at Daniel for a long time.
“I remember your mother.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Why?”
“Because your delivery was unusual.”
“How?”
Dr. Haines hesitated.
“Margaret Carter did not give birth to you.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
I stared at the doctor.
“What?”
“Your biological mother was another patient.”
Daniel slowly stood.
“No.”
Dr. Haines continued calmly.
“Your father arranged a private adoption.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was legal.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“I assumed they had.”
Daniel walked toward the window.
His shoulders shook once.
I had never seen him cry.
Not when Richard died.
Not when our marriage began falling apart.
But he cried then.
Because at thirty-eight years old, Daniel Carter learned that the woman who had built her entire life around bloodlines was not his biological mother.
The irony was almost cruel.
Dr. Haines gave us the name.
Rebecca Hale.
Daniel’s biological mother.
She had been nineteen.
She had wanted contact eventually.
Margaret refused.
Richard apparently continued sending Rebecca money for years.
Then something else appeared in the records.
A letter.
Richard had written it before he died.
He intended to tell Daniel the truth.
He never got the chance.
Daniel looked at me.
“Margaret spent six months telling me Lily wasn’t family.”
I nodded.
He wiped his face.
“And all this time…”
He couldn’t finish.
I did.
“She was terrified someone would question whether you were hers.”
May you like
Daniel looked down.
And suddenly Margaret’s obsession with blood made horrifying sense.
