Chapter 16 - THE WOMAN IN WISCONSIN
Her name was now Anna Brooks.
She lived outside Madison.
Worked in a library.
Fifty-three.
The photograph looked like me.
Or I looked like her.
I could not breathe when I saw it.
Investigators approached first.
She collapsed when they said my name.
My mother.
Alive.
She had spent nineteen years believing I was dead.
That was the cruelty I had not imagined.
Victor had arranged it.
After the crash, my mother suffered a brain injury.
Confusion.
Memory loss.
He used forged records to convince her Dad and I had died.
Dad was told she died.
Two grieving people separated by paperwork and lies.
Why?
My mother owned shares inherited from her father.
If she remained married to Dad, Victor could not consolidate control.
It was so stupid.
So cold.
So ordinary.
Money.
Always money.
I met her in a quiet federal office.
She walked in.
Stopped.
I stood.
Neither of us knew what to do.
Then she said.
“You have Robert’s eyebrows.”
I laughed.
Then cried.
She did too.
We hugged badly.
Too tight.
Then not tight enough.
She smelled like lavender soap.
I remembered that smell.
Maybe.
Or wanted to.
We did not become mother and daughter in five minutes.
We became two strangers with a wound in the same place.
That was enough for the first day.
Victoria had learned Anna was alive years earlier.
She kept it secret.
Insurance.
Again.
She wanted something from Victor.
He paid.
When payments stopped, she kept the information.
I finally agreed to see Victoria.
Behind glass.
She looked tired.
No makeup.
No cream suit.
“Did you know the whole time?”
“No.”
“When did you learn?”
“Four years ago.”
“You let me believe she was dead.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victoria stared at me.
“Because every truth in that family was worth money.”
I felt something inside me close.
She leaned forward.
“I can still help you.”
“No.”
“You need me.”
“No.”
“Emily—”
I stood.
She panicked.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
Victoria whispered.
“Your mother has the final patent assignment.”
I turned.
“She doesn’t know she has it.”
Then the prison alarm sounded.
Victoria looked toward the door.
A guard ran past.
Another shouted.
Someone had attacked Lawrence Ambrose in holding.
And before losing consciousness, Ambrose had said one name.
May you like
Daniel Carter.
