Chapter 2 - THE PARENTS WHO FOUND HER
Sofia’s parents were named Michael and Anna Reed.
Both were dead.
Michael died four years earlier of a stroke. Anna died seven months ago after ovarian cancer.
Sofia had come to work in my home because the small inheritance Anna left her was nearly gone after medical bills.
That was what the employment agency told me.
What Sofia told me that evening was different.
“My parents weren’t my birth parents.”
I sat on the edge of my bed.
The twin emeralds lay between us.
“When did they tell you?”
“My mom told me before she died.”
Sofia’s voice shook.
“She said they found me when I was thirteen.”
My chest tightened.
“Found you where?”
“Near a road outside Millbrook.”
Millbrook.
The town where Isabelle’s crash happened.
I gripped the bedspread.
Sofia continued.
“I had a head injury. I didn’t know my name. I remembered pieces. A big house. A woman wearing perfume. Green stones. A piano.”
We had a Steinway in the music room.
I wore Shalimar for twenty years.
The pendant against Sofia’s chest suddenly looked like an accusation.
“What date?”
She told me.
October 18.
The morning after Isabelle’s crash.
My daughter’s car had gone through a guardrail just before midnight on October 17.
The vehicle burned.
Police told us Isabelle’s body was recovered from the passenger side.
I had not been allowed to see her.
My husband, Charles, identified the remains through dental records.
Or so I had believed.
“Why didn’t Michael and Anna call the police?”
Sofia looked ashamed for something she had done at thirteen.
“They did.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Mom said they called. A deputy came. He told them there had been a fatal accident nearby but the missing child had already been identified.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“What happened after that?”
“They were told I was probably a runaway with trauma. My parents were licensed foster carers then. Social services placed me with them temporarily.”
“And nobody matched you to Isabelle?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I was registered as Jane Doe for two weeks. Then a social worker said no missing-child report matched me.”
My body went cold.
“There was a missing-child report.”
“I know that now.”
“Who was the social worker?”
Sofia pulled her phone from her apron pocket.
Before Anna died, she had photographed old paperwork.
Temporary placement.
Medical treatment.
Identity reconstruction.
The caseworker’s name appeared at the bottom.
Marjorie Kane.
I knew her.
She was not a stranger.
May you like
She had been Charles’s older sister.
My daughter’s aunt.
