Chapter 9 - Margaret's Mother
Margaret had told everyone her mother died in 1992.
Another funeral.
Another burial.
Another Whitmore death nobody had independently verified.
Her mother's name was Evelyn Foster.
According to Gloria, Evelyn had been living under another name for more than thirty years.
Elaine Porter.
Age eighty-six.
Savannah, Georgia.
When Detective Morales contacted local authorities, they confirmed she existed.
When they showed her Margaret's photograph, Evelyn began crying.
Then she agreed to talk.
I went with Charles.
He had never knowingly met the woman who had given birth to his half-sister.
Evelyn lived in a modest assisted-living apartment overlooking a courtyard.
She looked at Charles for several seconds.
Then she touched his cheek.
“You look like Edward.”
Charles flinched.
“I wish people would stop telling me that.”
Evelyn nodded sadly.
“So do I.”
She told us everything.
Edward Whitmore had been thirty-seven when he met her.
She was nineteen.
He lied about being married.
When she became pregnant, he paid her family to keep quiet.
Margaret was born.
Edward visited occasionally.
He never publicly acknowledged her.
Margaret grew up knowing a wealthy man visited her mother but not knowing why.
At twenty-one, she discovered the truth.
Then she met Charles at a charity event.
Evelyn tried desperately to stop the relationship.
Margaret refused.
“She said if Edward wouldn't give her the Whitmore name, she would take it herself.”
Charles shut his eyes.
“Did she love me at all?”
Evelyn's silence answered before her words did.
“In her way.”
Charles laughed bitterly.
“That isn't an answer.”
“No.”
“It isn't.”
Then Evelyn told us something none of the documents had revealed.
Margaret had been pregnant before Evan.
By Thomas Vale.
A daughter.
Born in 1985.
Margaret had given the baby away.
Thomas stood when we told him later.
“What?”
He had never known.
Margaret told him she had miscarried.
The baby had lived.
Her name at birth was Anna.
Evelyn had helped arrange the adoption.
“Why?”
I asked.
Evelyn looked ashamed.
“Margaret didn't want a daughter.”
“She wanted a son who could inherit.”
The cruelty of it was breathtaking.
“Where is Anna now?”
Evelyn handed me a photograph.
A woman approximately forty.
Dark hair.
Hazel eyes.
There was something familiar about her.
Then I realized why.
I had seen her.
At Sophie's birthday party.
Standing near the kitchen doorway.
One of Margaret's distant “friends.”
Her name was Diane.
Not Margaret's sister Diane.
Another Diane.
Diane Vale.
Thomas's supposed niece.
But she wasn't his niece.
She was his daughter.
Margaret's daughter.
And she had been inside my house when Sophie was chained outside.
We located Diane within hours.
She did not run.
She seemed almost relieved.
She had discovered her real parentage at eighteen.
Margaret found her first.
Instead of embracing her, Margaret recruited her.
Diane worked at Bellhaven.
Then Meridian.
She knew where the records were.
She knew who had been manipulated.
And she knew exactly how Sophie had been conceived.
“Margaret selected Charles's sample.”
My heart tightened.
“Yes.”
“But Nathan refused.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He told Margaret it was too dangerous.”
“Then how is Charles Sophie's father?”
Diane looked toward Thomas.
“Because someone else performed the substitution.”
“Who?”
She met my eyes.
“I did.”
The room went silent.
I stood so abruptly that my chair fell backward.
“You?”
Diane began crying.
“I didn't know what it was for.”
“You worked at the clinic.”
“I thought it was an authorized donor sample.”
“You changed the specimen that created my daughter.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to hate her.
Part of me did.
But terror on her face suggested another story.
“Who gave you the instruction?”
“Margaret.”
“Then you knew.”
“She used specimen numbers.”
“I didn't know the identities.”
“When did you discover the truth?”
“After Sophie was born.”
“And you stayed silent for five years.”
Diane's tears fell.
“Margaret had my son.”
My anger stopped.
“What?”
“She had taken guardianship of him.”
“Why?”
“Because I had a drug problem after Bellhaven closed.”
“She helped me.”
“Then she used him to control me.”
“Where is he now?”
Diane looked directly at Detective Morales.
“I don't know.”
That changed the investigation instantly.
Margaret had not simply manipulated DNA.
She might be holding another child.
Diane gave police an address.
An old hunting lodge owned through Meridian.
Officers raided it that night.
They found no child.
May you like
But they found Nathan Vale.
Alive.
