Chapter 5 - SARAH'S MOTHER
Sarah stared at the photograph for almost a full minute.
“No.”
Michael stood beside her hospital bed.
“That is your mother, right?”
Sarah touched the edge of the picture.
“She was twenty-three here.”
“How do you know?”
“The necklace.”
Rebecca Bennett wore a small silver heart at her throat.
Sarah owned the same necklace.
Her mother had given it to her before dying of cancer eleven years earlier.
Sarah looked at Michael.
“Why was my mother with your uncle?”
Michael sat beside her.
“I don't know.”
Sarah turned the photograph over.
Jonathan.
Eleanor.
Rebecca Bennett.
A date had been written below the names.
September 1996.
Sarah calculated silently.
“Michael.”
“What?”
“I was born in February 1997.”
Michael understood.
“Your mother was pregnant with you in this photograph.”
“Yes.”
“And Jonathan died in April.”
Sarah nodded.
Their eyes met.
Neither wanted to say the possibility aloud.
Michael finally did.
“What if Jonathan knew your mother too?”
Sarah's expression tightened.
“My father was Robert Bennett.”
“Are you sure?”
“He raised me.”
“That wasn't what I asked.”
Sarah looked away.
“My mother never talked much about the year before I was born.”
“Did your parents ever marry?”
“No.”
“She said they separated when I was a baby.”
Michael leaned back.
Sarah's eyes returned to the picture.
“There has to be another explanation.”
“There probably is.”
But neither believed it.
A nurse entered to check Sarah's blood pressure.
When she left, Sarah whispered.
“Where is Eleanor?”
“Still missing.”
Sarah looked toward the NICU.
“Then Grace isn't safe.”
“The hospital has security outside.”
“Eleanor threw me down stairs.”
“She thought that could kill our daughter.”
“She won't stop because a security guard is standing near an elevator.”
Michael took Sarah's hand.
“I won't let her near Grace.”
Sarah studied him.
“You can't keep saying that.”
“What?”
“I won't let her.”
Michael frowned.
Sarah continued.
“You spent three years telling me your mother was difficult but harmless.”
“I know.”
“You told me I misunderstood her.”
“I know.”
“You told me to ignore the comments.”
His eyes dropped.
“I know.”
Sarah's voice broke.
“And when I said she wanted me gone, you asked me to give her time.”
Michael didn't defend himself.
That mattered.
“I failed you.”
Sarah looked at him.
“Yes.”
The word hurt more than shouting would have.
Michael nodded.
“I did.”
Sarah's eyes filled with tears.
“I don't need promises right now.”
“Then what do you need?”
“The truth.”
Michael squeezed her hand.
“That's what we're going to find.”
The next morning, Detective Ortiz arrived carrying a thin folder.
“We found something.”
Michael stood.
“What?”
“Rebecca Bennett worked at Vance Industries.”
Sarah stared at her.
“My mother?”
“Executive administration.”
“From 1994 to 1997.”
Sarah shook her head.
“She told me she worked for an insurance company.”
“She did later.”
Ortiz placed a copy of an employment record on the table.
“Rebecca worked directly for Jonathan Vance.”
Michael went still.
Ortiz continued.
“She resigned three weeks before you were born, Sarah.”
Sarah stared at the paper.
“There must be records.”
“Most employment records from that period were digitized later.”
“We're looking.”
“What about Jonathan?”
Ortiz opened another page.
“Officially, Jonathan Vance died in a boating accident on April twenty-third, 1997.”
Michael asked.
“Officially?”
“The Coast Guard report was unusual.”
“How?”
“His body wasn't recovered for nine days.”
Sarah looked at Michael.
“And when they found him?”
Ortiz hesitated.
“There was no autopsy.”
Michael frowned.
“Why not?”
“His father objected.”
“William.”
“Yes.”
“The death was ruled accidental based on witness statements.”
“Whose statements?”
Ortiz slid the page across.
Two names.
Samuel Vance.
Eleanor Vance.
Michael's parents.
Sarah closed her eyes.
“What exactly did they say?”
“That Jonathan had been drinking.”
“He took the boat out alone.”
“A storm came in.”
“They watched the boat capsize from shore.”
Michael stared at his mother's signature.
Then Sarah noticed another name.
One written in the margin of the original report.
Rebecca Bennett.
“What is that?”
Ortiz nodded.
“That is why I came.”
Sarah looked up.
“Your mother gave a statement two days later.”
“What did she say?”
Ortiz looked directly at her.
“She said Jonathan wasn't alone on the boat.”
May you like
The room fell silent.
“She said Eleanor was with him.”
