Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
I thought Veronica was trying to manipulate me.
Then she showed me a photograph Richard had kept inside a locked desk.
It was taken six months earlier at a private medical facility in Vermont.
The woman in the picture had silver in her dark hair and scars along one side of her face.
But I recognized her eyes.
My mother’s eyes.
“She survived the crash,” Veronica said. “My father told me she had memory loss. Bell paid to keep her hidden.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Where is the facility?”
“I don’t know. The picture has a logo.”
Marcus identified it as Green Hollow Neurological Center.
Dana and I flew there that night.
The director denied knowing Elaine Sterling until Dana showed him a federal order. Then he led us to a quiet room overlooking the woods.
A woman sat beside the window, working on a chess puzzle.
“Mom?”
Her hand stopped.
She turned slowly.
For fourteen years, I had imagined what I would say if I could see her again. In that room, every prepared sentence disappeared.
“It’s Amelia.”
She studied my face.
Then she touched the small silver necklace at her throat.
“My little strategist,” she whispered.
I fell into her arms.
She remembered the crash in fragments. A truck forced her car off the road. Arthur Bell reached the hospital before my father and arranged for her transfer under another name.
Doctors had believed her confusion was permanent.
It wasn’t.
She recovered years earlier but pretended not to because Bell visited every few months.
“He talked in front of me,” she said. “He told Richard Hale what to do. He described how they would take Sterling Global after Nathan was arrested.”
“Why didn’t you escape?”
“I was waiting until I could prove it.”
She pointed to her chessboard.
Several pieces contained tiny handwritten notes. Dates. Account numbers. Names.
Her nurses believed chess calmed her.
In reality, she had documented every conversation.
Dana called the federal prosecutor handling my father’s case.
He agreed to meet us at a secure location.
We never made it.
Our vehicle stopped on a mountain road. The driver turned around and raised a gun.
Dana moved first, striking his arm. The shot shattered a window.
Our car swerved through the guardrail.
May you like
As we slid toward the cliff, my mother grabbed my hand.
The last thing I heard was Dana screaming, “Jump!”
