Chapter 12 - THE WOMAN ROSALIND MET IN BOSTON WALKED INTO WHITE ROSE HOUSE USING SOMEONE ELSE’S NAMERachel Monroe arrived at White Rose House on a Tuesday afternoon carrying no suitcase.
Only a grocery bag.
Adeline noticed that first.
Women who planned to stay usually brought something.
Clothes.
Medication.
A child’s stuffed animal.
A charger wrapped around a phone that never stopped ringing.
This woman brought a brown paper bag containing one toothbrush, three photographs, and a dead man’s business card.
She gave her name as Meredith Cole.
Thirty-nine.
Widowed.
No children in the home.
She said she needed temporary protection from a former employer.
Ordinary enough.
Until Adeline entered the name into intake records and the woman flinched.
“Don’t put that in the computer.”
Adeline stopped typing.
“Why?”
The woman looked toward the open greenhouse doors.
Children were painting flowerpots.
Rosie was arguing with Bernadette about whether worms had feelings.
The woman whispered:
“Because Meredith Cole doesn’t exist.”
Adeline became still.
White Rose House had procedures for aliases.
She did not panic.
“What name should I give your attorney?”
The woman looked at her.
“Rachel Monroe.”
Adeline forgot how to breathe.
She knew the name.
Caleb Vance had spoken it years earlier.
The accountant Rosalind and Caleb met at the Boston hotel.
The meeting Dante had Mason photograph.
The meeting Elias had once mistaken for an affair.
Adeline stood.
Rachel immediately said:
“Please don’t call Elias yet.”
That sentence almost made Adeline laugh.
Her aunt had once written nearly the same thing.
“You came to a refuge built on his property.”
“I know.”
“And you thought he wouldn’t eventually learn?”
“I hoped I could decide how.”
That answer mattered.
Choice.
White Rose House existed for exactly that.
Adeline sat again.
“Then you decide.”
Rachel stared as though she had expected interrogation.
Instead Adeline slid a glass of water toward her.
“What happened?”
Rachel looked at the grocery bag.
“Someone found me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they do?”
“They mailed my son his own school timetable.”
Adeline’s stomach tightened.
Rachel had said no children in the home.
Not no children.
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“Where is he?”
“With his father in Vermont.”
“Is he safe?”
“For now.”
Rachel removed one photograph from the bag.
It showed Rosalind outside the Boston hotel six years earlier.
Not the famous photographs Mason had taken.
This image came from farther away.
Rosalind.
Caleb.
And another man.
Silver hair.
Gray suit.
Hand extended toward Rosalind.
Adeline did not recognize him.
Rachel did.
“Malcolm Wren.”
“Who is he?”
Rachel laughed without humor.
“The reason Dante knew how to make stolen money look legal.”
Adeline said nothing.
Rachel continued.
“Dante created the problems.”
“Mason frightened people.”
“But Malcolm…”
She swallowed.
“Malcolm made the paperwork say nothing happened.”
Then she removed the dead man’s business card.
WREN, CALDER & SHAW
PRIVATE CLIENT SERVICES
On the back, in Rosalind’s handwriting, were four words.
RACHEL — IF I CAN’T.
Adeline stared.
“If you can’t what?”
Rachel’s eyes filled.
“I spent six years trying not to find out.”
Then she looked directly at Adeline.
“Dante was dangerous.”
“Mason was dangerous.”
“But near the end…”
May you like
Her voice dropped.
“Neither of them was the man your aunt was most afraid to put on paper.”
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