Chapter 17 - Emily's Mother Had Raised Anna's First DaughterEmily could not speak.
Rose looked at her.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Sarah Parker.”
Emily's knees weakened.
“My mother.”
Rose froze.
“What?”
Richard stared at both women.
Emily whispered:
“Sarah Parker was my mother.”
Rose stepped backward.
“No.”
“She died nine years ago.”
Rose's eyes filled.
“I know.”
The hallway became silent.
Emily remembered her mother.
Practical.
Tired.
Funny when she wanted to be.
A woman who worked two jobs.
A woman who never liked wealthy families.
A woman who once told Emily:
Never trust people who call silence loyalty.
Emily had thought it was general bitterness.
Now she wondered if it had been memory.
Rose stared.
“Sarah raised me from the time I was four.”
Emily stopped breathing.
“But I was already living on my own by then.”
“Different apartment.”
“Yes.”
Emily searched her memory.
Her mother had worked overnight shifts.
Spent weekends away.
Said she was caring for an elderly client in another borough.
Emily had believed her.
Perhaps that client never existed.
Rose continued.
“She never told me she had a daughter.”
Emily almost laughed through tears.
“Apparently our mothers were both very good at secrets.”
The word mothers hurt Rose.
Emily noticed.
She softened.
“I'm sorry.”
Rose looked away.
Richard asked:
“Why would Sarah hide you?”
Rose's face hardened.
“Maybe because she knew what your family was like.”
Fair.
Richard accepted it.
Then Emily remembered something.
A photograph.
Her mother with a little girl standing near a Christmas tree.
Emily had assumed the child belonged to the family Sarah worked for.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
Rose.
She had seen her before.
She simply never knew.
Emily whispered:
“My mother protected you.”
Rose looked at her.
“I don't know from what.”
Richard answered:
“From my family.”
Rose's eyes hardened.
“You don't know that either.”
He nodded.
“You're right.”
Emily noticed.
He was learning.
Slowly.
Rose looked at the trust transfer.
“Thirty minutes.”
Emily nodded.
“You can stop it with identity verification.”
“What happens after?”
“The money stays frozen.”
“And then?”
“You decide whether you want anything to do with it.”
Rose almost laughed.
“Twenty-one million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“And three sisters?”
Richard's face changed.
“Yes.”
Rose looked away.
The word sisters frightened her more than the money.
Emily understood.
Money could be rejected.
Family was harder.
Then Rose said:
“Sarah told me something before she died.”
Emily looked at her.
“What?”
“She said if people ever came asking about Anna, I should find the girl with the broken black suitcase.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Her suitcase.
The one Victoria had thrown outside the gate.
The one with the damaged wheel.
The one that contained Anna's hidden brass key.
Rose continued.
“She said that girl would choose children over rich people.”
Emily began crying.
Her mother had known.
Not everything.
But enough.
Emily asked:
“Did she leave you anything?”
Rose nodded.
“A box.”
“Where?”
“In storage.”
“What's inside?”
“I never opened it.”
“Why?”
“She said not to unless three girls came looking for me.”
Silence.
Richard covered his mouth.
Rose looked at him.
“Are there really three?”
“Yes.”
“All together?”
“Yes.”
“Do they know about me?”
“Not yet.”
Rose's eyes filled.
Then she looked at Emily.
“Would they hate me?”
Emily's heart broke.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the first thing they asked when they learned someone tried to separate them was whether that person would have to eat dinner alone.”
Rose looked confused.
Emily smiled through tears.
“They think being alone is the worst punishment in the world.”
For the first time, Rose almost smiled.
Then the trust administrator called.
Twenty-two minutes.
Rose completed identity verification.
The transfer froze.
Twenty-one million dollars remained safe.
She did not celebrate.
She only exhaled.
Then Richard's phone rang.
Vivian.
He answered.
Listened.
His face turned white.
Emily asked:
“What happened?”
Richard lowered the phone.
“Someone broke into the mansion.”
Emily's heart pounded.
“The girls?”
“Safe.”
She exhaled.
“What's missing?”
Richard looked at Rose.
Then at Emily.
“The second blue envelope.”
Silence.
“And Anna's recorder.”
Rose went pale.
Then Richard added:
“Whoever took them left one thing behind.”
“What?”
“A photograph of Sarah Parker.”
May you like
Emily stopped breathing.
“And on the back, someone wrote: She wasn't protecting Rose from the Hales. She was protecting the Hales from Rose.”
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