Chapter 12 - The Truth About Daniel and Lena
Daniel had spent eleven years in a foreign prison while our family mourned him over an empty coffin.
He told us after Toby went upstairs with Grandma.
The officers had taken preliminary statements.
A detective was coming in the morning.
My mother remained outside with an officer, answering questions about Vance’s instructions.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea he never drank.
Before his disappearance, he had managed overseas accounts for my father’s construction company.
“I found payments for buildings that didn’t exist,” he said.
“Emergency shelters. Schools. Clinics.”
“Richard was stealing?”
“Richard and the people approving the contracts.”
Daniel had copied the records.
He planned to bring them home.
Instead, he was arrested overseas on financial charges supported by documents bearing his signature.
Forged signatures.
“I thought a lawyer would fix it,” he said.
“Then the lawyer Richard sent told me to plead guilty.”
He refused.
Months became years.
His letters vanished.
Requests for consular help went through people who seemed always to know Richard’s version first.
Eventually, a legal aid organization obtained his case file and uncovered enough irregularities to secure his release.
He had come home eight months earlier.
“Grandpa’s photograph,” I said.
Daniel nodded.
“I contacted him. He sent money through the lawyers. We were gathering records when he died.”
“Why didn’t you come to us then?”
“Richard had given me a copy of an old warrant here. I believed I’d be arrested before I could explain anything.”
He looked down.
“The lawyers needed time to establish it had been withdrawn. I needed time to stop believing every uniform meant another cell.”
His voice broke on the last word.
I understood fear.
I also understood that Toby had spent those months waiting behind a locked bedroom door.
“You should have found another way.”
“I know.”
He accepted it without defending himself.
On the table, the birth certificate lay beside Grandpa’s letter.
I pointed to the unfamiliar name.
“Lena Hart. Toby’s mother. What happened to her?”
Daniel’s hand closed around the cup.
“She’s alive.”
I stared at him.
“She was convicted as my accomplice. Richard said she’d handled the domestic transfers. He used the same account records.”
“Where is she?”
“An Illinois prison.”
Twelve years.
My brother’s mother had been less than a day’s drive away for twelve years.
“Did she give Toby up?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“She signed documents allowing Richard and Caroline to care for him while she appealed. What reached the adoption court was different.”
A sound came from the stairs.
Toby stood halfway down, barefoot, his face white.
“You said my mother is alive.”
Daniel rose, then stopped himself.
“Yes.”
“Does she know where I am?”
“Richard told her you had been placed with another family. He said knowing which family would interfere with the adoption.”
Toby gripped the banister.
“Did she ask about me?”
Daniel pressed his palms against the table.
“Every letter she managed to send me.”
My brother sat down on the stair.
I went to him.
He leaned against me, shaking.
May you like
For years, he had believed he was difficult to love.
Now he was discovering that two people had spent those same years trying to reach him.
