Chapter 7: The Man Who Caused the Crash
Carol answered on the second knock.
She read my face before I said a word and took a step back.
"What happened?"
"Gerald Marsh," I said.
"Tell me about your son."
The color left her face so completely and so fast that I knew — before she said a single word — that she had been carrying something too.
"Come in," she said.
"Tell me first.
Right here.
Gerald Marsh."
"He's my son." Her voice had gone small.
"He's thirty-four.
He lives about forty minutes from here." She paused.
"We don't have a close relationship."
"Why not?"
She looked past me at the street.
"Because of the things he's done.
Over the years." She brought her eyes back to mine.
"What do you know?"
"My husband recognized him.
The day of the accident.
He says Gerald was driving the car that hjt them."
Carol put one hand over her mouth.
"He survived," I said.
"Our daughter didn't."
Carol made a sound I won't describe.
She turned and walked into the sitting room and I followed her.
She sat down heavily in the armchair by the window.
Her hands were in her lap and she was looking at them.
"I didn't know," she said.
"I swear to you I did not know that."
"What did you know?"
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Gerald called me about a year ago," she said.
"He told me he had a child.
A girl.
He said the mother wasn't in the picture and he couldn't take care of her and he needed me to take her." Carol looked up.
"I told him to go through the proper channels.
I told him I wasn't going to take a child off the street — I needed it done legally, with oversight, so she would be protected." Her voice cracked slightly.
"So he surrendered her to the county.
And eight months ago they placed her with me."
"Did he tell you anything about where she came from?
Who her mother was?"
"He said she was his.
That's all he said."
"Did you believe him?"
Carol's hands tightened in her lap.
"I wanted to.
Because the alternative —" She stopped.
"The alternative was something I wasn't ready to think about."
"You need to think about it now."
A sound from upstairs.
Small footsteps crossing a floor.
Both of us looked up at the ceiling.
"She can't hear this," Carol said quietly.
"I know." I lowered my voice.
"Where is Gerald now?"
"I haven't spoken to him in four months.
He called once asking about Lily — asking if she'd said anything about her past.
I told him no." Carol looked at me steadily.
"He seemed relieved.
That bothered me more than I let on."
"He called to find out if she was remembering."
"Yes.
I think so."
"Carol." I leaned forward.
"I think Lily is my daughter.
I think she is the child I gave birth to eleven years ago.
I think something happened — I don't know what yet — and she was taken from us, and Gerald Marsh knows how and why." I watched her face.
"And I think the accident that k*lled Ava was not an accident."
Carol closed her eyes.
"I think so too," she whispered.
The front door opened behind me.
Ryan came in, and behind him, a woman I didn't recognize — professional, composed, a bag over her shoulder.
"This is Patricia Vance," Ryan said.
"Dennis Hartley called her.
She's a family law attorney.
She drove straight here."
Patricia looked between me and Carol.
"I've been briefed on the basics," she said.
"Before we go any further, I need to know one thing." She looked at Carol.
"Are you willing to cooperate?"
Carol looked at Lily's photograph on the mantelpiece.
The girl with Ava's eyes, smiling in a garden somewhere, holding a flower.
"Yes," Carol said.
"Whatever she needs.
Whatever it takes."
May you like
Patricia set her bag on the table and opened it.
"Then let's start," she said.
