PART 4
The Child No One Was Supposed to Mention
Her name was Willa.
She was five years old.
Agent Barrett brought the information to Natalie’s house two evenings later, after investigators found private-care payments connected to Marjorie.
Willa’s mother, Sofia Lane, had once worked as an accounting specialist for one of the financiers linked to Colin’s business network. She had passed away after a highway collision four years earlier. Since then, payments for Willa’s care had moved through several accounts, and the records suggested Colin might be her biological father.
I sat very still.
“He had a daughter before Maisie?”
“That is what we are working to confirm.”
Rachel, seated beside me, asked the harder question.
“Why hide her?”
Agent Barrett folded his hands.
“Because a previously undisclosed child connected to those financial relationships could raise questions Colin did not want investors, lenders, or his wife asking.”
His wife.
Me.
A photograph lay inside the folder.
Willa was small, with brown curls and a solemn face, holding a stuffed fox against her chest.
I expected jealousy.
Instead, I felt an immediate, unbearable sadness for a child who looked as though she had learned too early not to expect anyone to stay.
“Where is she?”
“In temporary care near Charlotte.”
I looked at Maisie sleeping beside me.
Then back at the photograph.
“I want to meet her.”
Three days later, Willa entered a family-services room wearing a navy cardigan and clutching the same stuffed fox.
She looked at me, then at the baby in my arms.
“Is that Maisie?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Grandma Marjorie showed me a picture.”
I kept my voice gentle.
“Did you see Marjorie often?”
Willa shrugged.
“Sometimes.”
Then she asked, with no warning at all:
“Are you mad at me?”
The question nearly broke me.
“No, sweetheart. Not even a little.”
She stared at the floor.
“Grandma said you would be. She said Daddy had a real family now, so I had to be good and not cause trouble.”
I heard Natalie turn away behind me.
I leaned forward.
“Willa, listen carefully. Children are not trouble. And you never have to disappear to make someone else comfortable.”
Her lower lip trembled.
After a while, she glanced at Maisie.
“Will she know I’m her sister?”
The paternity results were not complete yet, but in that moment, paperwork seemed smaller than the child in front of me.
“She’ll know who you are.”
May you like
Willa pressed the stuffed fox closer.
“I’d like somebody to know.”
