Chapter 12 - THE FAMILY THAT WAS HIDDEN FROM US
For one terrible second, Adrian and I simply stared at my mother.
"Your sister?" I whispered.
Mom nodded.
Adrian looked equally stunned.
"Then Hannah and I are related?"
Mom shook her head quickly.
"Not by blood."
I exhaled.
She continued.
"Evelyn and I grew up in the same foster home. We called each other sisters from the day we were little."
Adrian sat slowly.
"My mother grew up in foster care?"
Mom nodded.
"She was placed with my family when she was eleven. My parents eventually became her legal guardians."
He stared.
"She never told me."
"Your father didn't like anyone discussing her childhood."
Adrian looked down at the ring.
Another piece of his mother's life had been hidden from him.
Mom continued.
"Evelyn believed family wasn't only about blood. It was about who stayed when life became difficult."
I smiled through tears.
"That sounds like her."
Mom nodded.
"She was extraordinary."
For the first time, Adrian asked about his mother instead of the investigation.
What was Evelyn like as a girl?
Did she laugh loudly?
Was she stubborn?
What did she dream about before marrying Vincent Cain?
Mom answered every question she could.
She told him Evelyn loved old jazz records.
That she made terrible pancakes.
That she wanted to become a social worker.
And that she once spent an entire Christmas Eve helping a frightened foster child find a missing stuffed animal.
Adrian laughed softly.
"My mother hated cooking."
Mom grinned.
"That never stopped her."
For a moment, the room felt warm.
Ordinary.
Like a family discovering old memories.
Then Mom explained the house.
Evelyn had inherited a small property from their foster parents.
She placed it in trust for June because she feared Vincent might attempt to sell it.
But the property records became tangled in the family estate.
Mom never knew she'd been named a beneficiary.
An independent attorney began reviewing the will.
The house still existed.
A small brick property near Lake Michigan.
It had been rented for years.
And several rent payments appeared never to have reached their intended beneficiary.
Mom looked at the documents in disbelief.
"All those years..."
I thought about our apartment.
The bills.
The constant financial pressure.
And the woman who'd tried to protect us from the past.
Then Adrian's phone rang.
His attorney.
He answered.
His expression changed.
"What?"
He listened.
Then looked at us.
"Sebastian Vane has been arrested."
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Adrian added that Coraline had also been taken into custody in connection with alleged witness intimidation and financial wrongdoing.
Relief washed through me.
But the attorney wasn't finished.
Investigators had recovered records suggesting the medical charity fraud involved more families than anyone originally believed.
The foundation's accounts had been used to divert money from patient assistance programs for almost two decades.
And one document listed the intended recipient of the largest concealed account.
Not Sebastian.
Not Vincent.
Not the Cain family.
HANNAH ELLIS.
I stared.
"Me?"
Adrian nodded.
Then his attorney revealed the amount.
"An estimated twenty-seven million dollars in assets may be connected to a trust established for you."
May you like
I felt the room spin.
The waitress with three dollars left in her purse had apparently been the beneficiary of a fortune nobody wanted her to discover.
