Chapter 2 - THE CHILD HE NEVER STOPPED SEARCHING FOR
“The child was my father's daughter.”
Dominic Caruso said those words so quietly that I almost didn't hear them.
I stood beside my mother's wheelchair, still gripping the black jacket he'd placed over her knees.
“Your father's daughter?”
He nodded.
“My little sister.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Dominic was thirty-eight.
I was thirty-five.
And according to him, a four-year-old girl had disappeared from his family's home thirty-one years earlier.
A girl named Margaret.
My name.
I took a step backward.
“No.”
Dominic didn't move toward me.
“I understand this is difficult.”
“You don't understand anything.”
My voice shook.
“Ten minutes ago, I thought my mother was dead. Now you're telling me a woman was buried under her name, and somehow I'm supposed to believe we're related?”
He lowered his eyes.
“You shouldn't believe anything simply because I say it.”
That answer surprised me.
He looked toward Leo.
“Have the remaining guests been escorted out?”
“Yes, boss.”
“And the police?”
“They're on their way.”
Dominic nodded.
Then he turned back to me.
“When I was seven, my father died in a fire at one of our family businesses.”
I stared at him.
“My mother disappeared that same night. So did my little sister.”
“Your mother?”
“Evelyn Caruso.”
My stomach tightened.
The woman who had come looking for me.
The woman whose body had supposedly been sent to a funeral home under June Sullivan's name.
Dominic continued.
“The man with the scar told my family Evelyn had taken my sister away. Later, he claimed both of them had died.”
“But you didn't believe him?”
“I never saw proof.”
He swallowed.
“And I remembered my sister being alive when she left.”
I looked toward Mom.
She was staring at the table.
“Mom?”
She didn't answer.
“Did you know about him?”
Her lips trembled.
“Maggie, sweetheart—”
“Did you know I might have a brother?”
She closed her eyes.
That was answer enough.
I pulled my hand away.
For the first time in my life, I felt as though the woman who had raised me was keeping an entire world behind a locked door.
Dominic noticed my expression.
“Don't be angry with her yet.”
I turned sharply.
“You don't get to tell me how to feel.”
“No,” he said. “I don't.”
Then he pulled out a chair.
“But we should understand what happened before deciding who failed whom.”
I wanted to hate how reasonable he sounded.
I wanted someone to blame.
Robert Vance had lied about my mother's death.
A stranger had died under her name.
And now the mother I'd trusted for thirty-one years couldn't look me in the eye.
Mom reached for me.
“Maggie, please.”
I looked down.
Her bare feet were tucked beneath Dominic's jacket.
The warm slippers a waiter had brought were sitting beside her chair.
She had been too frightened to put them on.
I knelt.
Without speaking, I gently slipped them onto her feet.
She began crying.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
I adjusted the left slipper.
Then the right.
I was furious with her.
But I couldn't stop being her daughter.
A few minutes later, a police detective named Sonia Reyes entered with a uniformed officer.
An emergency medical team followed.
Dominic stepped aside immediately.
“This is June Sullivan,” he explained. “She's seventy-nine and was removed from a residential care facility under concerning circumstances.”
Detective Reyes looked at Mom.
“Mrs. Sullivan, would you like medical attention?”
“Yes, please.”
“And are you comfortable speaking with us here?”
Mom looked at me.
Then nodded.
“I want my daughter beside me.”
The detective glanced at Dominic.
He understood.
“I'll give you space.”
But Mom suddenly caught his sleeve.
“Please stay.”
He looked down.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“There's something you need to hear.”
The medical team checked her blood pressure and examined her feet.
She was dehydrated and exhausted, but alert and able to answer questions.
The doctor recommended hospital observation.
Mom agreed, provided I could accompany her.
Then Detective Reyes asked about Willow Gardens.
Mom explained the locked room.
The missing walker.
The director's threats.
And the woman who had visited three nights earlier.
“Did she give you a name?” the detective asked.
Mom nodded.
“Evelyn.”
Dominic went still.
“Evelyn what?”
“Mercer. That's the name she used.”
His face changed.
“My mother's maiden name was Mercer.”
I stared at him.
Mom began crying again.
“She said she had searched for Maggie for years. She said someone had finally told her where to find us.”
“Who?” I asked.
“She wouldn't say.”
Detective Reyes wrote something down.
“Did Evelyn explain why she stayed away?”
Mom looked frightened.
“She said the man who took everything from her was still watching.”
“Robert Vance?”
“No.”
Mom shook her head.
“Someone much worse.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“The man with the scar?”
She nodded.
I felt cold.
“Mom, how did you know that man thirty-one years ago?”
Her fingers tightened around my hand.
“He came to our house the night I took you in.”
I stared.
“You never told me that.”
“I know.”
“What did he want?”
Mom looked at Dominic.
Then whispered, “He wanted the little girl Evelyn had left with me.”
Detective Reyes stopped writing.
“Did he identify himself?”
“Yes.”
“What name did he give?”
Mom hesitated.
“Victor Rourke.”
Dominic stood so suddenly his chair scraped across the floor.
Leo looked toward him.
“Boss?”
Dominic pressed his hands against the table.
“Rourke was my father's business manager.”
The detective looked up.
“Do you know where he is now?”
Dominic nodded.
“He owns the company that operates Willow Gardens.”
I stared at him.
The man who had chased me through the care center.
The man who had helped destroy Dominic's childhood.
And the man who now controlled the place where I'd trusted strangers to care for my mother.
They were connected.
All of them.
But Mom hadn't finished.
“Rourke wasn't alone that night.”
Dominic looked toward her.
“Who was with him?”
Mom reached beneath her yellow shawl.
Her trembling fingers found a small silver charm attached to a worn chain.
It was shaped like a little bird.
“I kept this because Evelyn said you'd recognize it someday.”
Dominic stared.
His eyes filled.
He slowly opened his shirt collar.
Beneath it hung an identical silver bird.
I couldn't speak.
But Mom shook her head.
“There's something you still don't understand.”
She looked directly at Dominic.
“I didn't hide Maggie from Victor Rourke alone.”
Dominic's voice dropped.
“Who else?”
Mom began crying.
May you like
“The person who came with him was wearing your father's gold signet ring.”
And Dominic whispered, “That ring was buried with him.”
