Chapter 7 - Patricia Had Been Inside the Family
Patricia answered Eleanor’s call immediately.
Her voice sounded warm.
Normal.
“Eleanor, is everything all right?”
Eleanor looked around the room.
Everyone listened.
“Rebecca is upset.”
“I heard there was a misunderstanding.”
Rebecca’s face hardened.
News had traveled too fast.
Eleanor continued.
“I need you to come over.”
A pause.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Patricia sounded concerned.
“Is Mark there?”
Michael watched Eleanor.
She answered.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“And the baby?”
Rebecca felt cold.
Eleanor’s eyes flicked toward her.
“Yes.”
Patricia said she would come.
Michael shook his head.
“She won’t.”
He was right.
Ten minutes later, a car registered to Patricia left Manhattan heading north.
Police began tracking it.
Mark turned to Eleanor.
“How long has she worked for you?”
“Seventeen years.”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“She probably knew about me before you did.”
Eleanor looked crushed.
Claire searched old employment records.
Patricia had started at Thomas’s company before Mark was born.
Not as an assistant.
As a neonatal nurse consultant.
Rebecca stared.
“She was at the hospital.”
Eleanor stopped breathing.
Patricia’s name appeared in archived staff records from St. Matthew’s.
She had been on duty the night the twins were born.
Mark stood.
“She took Michael.”
Michael looked at him.
“Maybe.”
Eleanor began sobbing.
“No.”
Claire continued.
Patricia later joined Thomas’s private firm.
Then, after Thomas married Eleanor, she became Eleanor’s assistant.
She had lived inside the family for almost two decades.
Not hidden.
Trusted.
Rebecca thought of all the birthdays Patricia attended.
All the family medical appointments she arranged.
All the documents she carried.
Then Michael found an old expense record.
Payment from Thomas Vance to P. Sloan.
Date: two days after the twins’ birth.
Description: TRANSFER FEE.
Eleanor nearly collapsed.
Mark caught her instinctively.
Even now.
Even after the lies.
She was still his mother.
Michael looked away.
That tiny movement said more than words.
He had never had that reflex.
No mother to catch.
No history of being caught.
Police called.
Patricia’s car had been abandoned at a train station.
No sign of her.
Then Rebecca heard something upstairs.
A soft electronic beep.
She froze.
Ava’s baby monitor.
Mark ran.
They reached the nursery.
Empty.
The bassinet remained.
Blanket inside.
No baby.
Rebecca screamed.
“AVA!”
Mark grabbed the monitor.
The window was open.
Michael looked toward the roofline.
“Fire escape.”
Rebecca nearly collapsed.
Claire held her up.
Then a phone on the changing table rang.
Not Rebecca’s.
A prepaid phone.
Mark answered.
Patricia’s voice.
“Now we can finally finish what Thomas started.”
Rebecca screamed into the phone.
“If you touch her—”
Patricia interrupted calmly.
May you like
“I already did.”
Then the line disconnected.
