Chapter 3 - THE LETTER
Richard reached for the envelope.
Clara pulled it against her chest.
“That’s mine.”
He stopped with his hand still extended.
“I only want to understand.”
“Then ask.”
For the first time that evening, I saw the woman beneath the uniform.
Not a lost little girl.
A young woman who had learned that people with nice manners could still take things.
Clara handed the letter to me herself.
The paper was thin and creased.
Dear Ruth,
If anything happens to me, the little girl placed with you in September 2007 was not an abandoned child.
Her mother is Caroline Whitmore.
The placement papers were arranged through me.
I was told the mother had agreed.
I know now that she did not.
I kept copies.
Marianne Cole.
Below the signature was a phone number and the name of a storage facility.
My mouth went dry.
“Where is Marianne?”
Clara shook her head.
“Mom hasn’t heard from her in years.”
“Why didn’t Ruth contact me?”
The question came out sharper than I intended.
Clara stiffened.
“Because she only found the letter last month.”
She explained that Ruth had suffered a stroke.
While clearing space for medical equipment, Clara had opened a metal box of old placement records.
The letter was inside an envelope with Ruth’s name on it.
Still sealed.
“It came tucked into a packet when Marianne’s office closed,” Clara said.
“Mom thought it was more paperwork.”
“And you believed it?”
“I believed I needed to find out.”
She had called the number.
Disconnected.
She had written to the last address.
Returned.
Then she’d searched my name.
Photographs of our house appeared beside an article about a charity dinner.
A staffing agency advertised temporary work there.
“So you applied.”
“Yes.”
“Why not knock on the front door?”
Clara looked at Richard.
Then Vivian.
“Would they have let me in?”
Neither answered.
Naomi arrived forty minutes later.
By then, Richard had tried to dismiss Arthur twice.
Vivian had offered Clara money for a hotel.
I had locked myself in the library with Clara, though I left the key on the table where she could reach it.
Naomi read the letter without interrupting.
Then she photographed both sides.
“We preserve everything,” she said.
“No accusations in public.
No private deals.”
Richard appeared in the doorway.
“This is becoming absurd.”
Naomi looked up.
“Then evidence should make it simple.”
Clara’s phone vibrated.
She glanced at the screen and went pale.
“What is it?” I asked.
A text from Ruth’s neighbor filled the display.
May you like
Someone came asking about you.
They said your new employer sent them.
