Chapter 10 - WHY MARGARET TOOK AVA
Anna refused to believe it.
“Margaret wasn’t there.”
The forensic evidence said otherwise.
A partial blood sample from the passenger-side rear door matched Margaret.
She had been near the crash.
Eight years before officially becoming Anna’s foster mother.
Margaret came to Chicago voluntarily.
She walked into Adrien’s study carrying no lawyer.
“I wondered if this day would come.”
Anna started crying.
“You lied to me.”
Margaret’s face broke.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because Margaret had not been a random librarian.
Before retirement, she worked as a child-protection investigator.
Lorenzo Voss contacted her through an attorney after discovering Ava had survived.
But that came later.
The night of the crash, Margaret had been driving behind Celeste.
She saw another vehicle force the Voss car through the barrier.
She stopped.
Climbed down toward the ravine.
Found Celeste unconscious.
Found Ava farther upstream.
Before she could move the child, Mateo arrived.
Together they pulled Ava to safety.
Then Victor’s security men appeared.
Margaret hid.
Mateo did not.
That was why Mateo believed he handed Ava to one man alone.
He never saw Margaret watching.
“I followed them,” Margaret said.
Victor took Ava to the private clinic.
Margaret contacted police.
Before she could give a full statement, someone broke into her home.
A message was left on her wall:
FORGET THE GIRL.
She did not forget.
Instead she contacted Lorenzo privately months later.
When St. Anne needed a foster placement, Lorenzo asked Margaret to take Ava.
“And you agreed?” Anna whispered.
“Yes.”
“Because he paid you?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“No.”
She opened her purse.
Every payment Lorenzo attempted to send had been returned.
“I agreed because the first night I saw you, you were lying in the rain asking for your father.”
Adrien looked away.
Anna cried.
“Why didn’t you tell me who I was?”
“Because Victor kept finding you.”
“But after he died?”
“I was afraid Conrad would continue.”
He had.
Again, protection through silence.
Again, a child paying for adult fear.
Anna stood.
“I need time.”
Margaret nodded.
No begging.
No demand for forgiveness.
That helped.
Later, Anna asked me to sit beside her.
“Do I have to stop calling her Mom?”
“No.”
“But she isn’t my real mom.”
I looked at her.
“She raised you.”
“Celeste was my mom.”
“Yes.”
“So what is Margaret?”
“Also your mom, if that’s what you choose.”
Anna thought about it.
“Can people have two?”
“People can have whatever family survives the truth.”
She leaned against me.
Across the room, Adrien watched.
That evening he told me:
“You’re good at this.”
“At what?”
“Knowing what to say.”
I laughed.
“I’m making half of it up.”
“So is everyone.”
Our first dinner happened two nights later.
No guards at the table.
No mansion.
A small Italian restaurant where Adrien somehow managed not to buy the building.
We talked about stupid things.
Movies.
Food.
Why Lily believed dinosaurs could have been domesticated.
For ninety minutes, Adrien Voss was simply a man.
Then his phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
He sighed.
“What?”
Luca’s voice carried faintly.
Adrien’s face changed.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“The prosecutor opened Mateo’s warehouse case.”
My stomach tightened.
“And?”
“They found the person who signed the false electrical-failure report.”
I waited.
Adrien’s voice lowered.
May you like
“It was someone you know.”
The investigator who officially declared Mateo’s death accidental had been my own brother, Detective Gabriel Delgado.
