Chapter 7: The Other Father
The name on the second contract was Thomas Adler.
Age six.
The father's name was listed as Robert Adler.
I forwarded the photograph to Patrick immediately, then walked to the front of the chapel.
"Patrick," I said.
He was mid-sentence with Agent Doyle.
He looked at my face and stopped.
"Excuse me one moment," he said to Doyle, and stepped aside.
I showed him the phone.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he handed the phone to Agent Doyle without a word.
Doyle looked at it.
Then she called to the man by the door.
He came over, looked at the screen, and took out his own phone.
"Where did this come from?" Doyle asked me.
"A text.
Unknown number.
Someone named Marcus."
"Marcus Webb?"
"He said she told him to send it if anything went wrong today."
Doyle looked at her colleague.
Something passed between them.
"We're going to need your phone," she said to me.
"Patrick?" I said.
"Give it to her," he said.
"They'll return it."
I handed it over.
Doyle walked to the far end of the chapel, already dialing.
Patrick turned to me.
"Robert Adler," he said quietly.
"Do you know that name?"
"No."
"I do," Carol Marsh said.
We both looked at her.
She had come up quietly behind us, folder still in hand.
"Robert Adler contacted me eight months ago," she said.
"His son had been placed at Hillcroft.
He was trying to get him out.
He said the placement had been arranged by a woman he'd been in a relationship with, and that he hadn't signed anything — but the program had paperwork with his signature on it." She paused.
"I wasn't able to help him at the time because I didn't have enough documentation.
He stopped returning my calls after about three weeks."
"Why did he stop?" I said.
Carol looked at me steadily.
"He said someone had contacted his employer.
He said things at work had become complicated."
I thought about what Rebecca had said about the charitable trust.
About Marcus having copies.
"She pressured him," I said.
"That's what I believe, yes."
Patrick had his phone out now, typing quickly.
"I'm going to need Robert Adler's contact information," he said to Carol.
"Today if possible."
"I'll find what I have," she said.
I looked toward the anteroom.
Through the door I could see my mother and Emily, still sitting together.
Emily had fallen asleep against my mother's shoulder, the loose flowers still in her lap.
I walked back and stood in the doorway.
My mother looked up.
"How bad is it?" she said softly, so as not to wake Emily.
"Bad enough," I said.
"But it's going to be all right."
She looked at me the way she had when I was young and said something she wasn't sure she believed.
Not unkindly.
Just honestly.
"What did she want?" my mother said.
"In the end.
What was she actually after?"
I thought about it.
"Control," I said.
"Of me.
Of the house.
Of what came next." I paused.
"Emily was in the way of that."
My mother looked down at Emily's sleeping face.
"Her mother would have walked through fire," she said quietly.
"I know."
"You almost let the wrong woman stand where she stood."
"I know that too."
Emily shifted in her sleep, and the flowers in her lap slid to the floor.
My mother caught them before they fell.
From the main chapel, I heard Agent Doyle's voice — sharp, clear, no longer careful.
May you like
"Ms.
Calloway, I need you to stop talking and listen to me very carefully."
