"Then we do what's possible," she said. "We find the ledger. We find the families. We put Voss's name on the record where it belongs." She looked at Maya. "And whatever it costs — we pay it together."
Maya met her eyes. A month ago this woman had been a stranger at a restaurant table. Now they were standing in a lawyer's office planning a raid on a storage unit, and Maya realized, with a jolt, that she trusted her.
"Together," Maya said.
Susan's pen paused above the legal pad while the three of them hung between law and family in silence.
Susan picked up her phone. "Then let's start. I'm calling the DA's office now — off the record, for now. And Maya?" She paused. "Your mother — Rebecca — whatever the law says she did, she took a child out of a burning building. Don't ever let anyone tell you different."
"She ran into a burning building," Maya managed. "That's what she did."
"Yes," Susan said. "And the law — whatever else it says — should at least get that right."
Eleanor reached over and took Maya's hand — the left one, the marked one — and held it like it was something precious and ordinary at the same time.
Maya nodded, throat too tight to answer. Outside the glass walls, the afternoon light slanted across the city, and somewhere in Aurora, an old man was eating dinner in a dining room with plastic flowers on the tables, not knowing that the past was finally, finally coming to collect.
Chapter 13: Dr. Voss
The assisted-living facility in Aurora smelled like carrots and floor wax. Maya sat in the passenger seat of Eleanor's car and watched an old man in a windbreaker lose an argument with a pigeon, and considered asking to be driven back to Denver.
"We don't have to do this," Eleanor said. Both hands on the wheel. Knuckles white.
"Is Kowalski inside?"
"He's waiting in the lobby." Eleanor finally looked at her. "I can go in alone. Truly."
"I want to see his face."
"Why?"
Maya opened the door. "Because I've been scared of it for twenty-five years without knowing it."
Kowalski met them at the front desk — a big man gone soft around the middle, with eyes that had never retired. He nodded at Maya. "You sure, kid?"
"No," Maya said. "Let's go."
The receptionist looked up from her computer. "Are you family?"
Eleanor didn't break stride. "No," she said. "We're his conscience."
Kowalski snorted. Maya felt something loosen in her chest, just a fraction.
The sunroom was all windows and dying plants. Dr. Alan Voss sat in an armchair with a blanket over his knees, reading a newspaper through half-moon glasses. He was smaller than she'd imagined. Frail. Liver spots on his hands like spilled tea. When he looked up, his eyes were sharp and blue.
"Mrs. Whitmore," he said. "It's been a long time."
"Twenty-five years," Eleanor said. Level. Glacial. "Four months."
Voss folded the paper with care. "And who is this young woman?"
"This is my daughter."
A beat. Voss studied Maya — her face, then her left hand, where the crescent mark showed against her skin. Something shifted behind his eyes.
"Ah," he said softly. "The fever-ward baby."
"You remember," Maya said.
"I remember all my patients."
"You don't get to call her that," Eleanor said.
Voss spread his hands — reasonable, avuncular, a man accustomed to being believed. "Mrs. Whitmore, St. Brigid's closed years ago. Whatever it is you're looking for—"
"A man with a fake badge took my three-month-old daughter out of your clinic on December fourteenth, 2000," Eleanor said. "He carried her down to your parking garage, where a buyer was waiting. I want you to say it."
"I don't know what you think I—"
"Say it."
Kowalski cleared his throat. "Doctor. We have the discharge log. Forged. We have Diane Mercer's statement. We have the nurse who intercepted your orderly and ran. You want to keep performing, that's your right. But the performance is over."
Voss's mouth tightened. He looked at Maya again. "You were placed with a good family. A nurse. A mechanic. From everything I hear, you were loved."
"Don't," Maya said quietly.
"I'm only saying—"
"Don't tell me what I was." She sat down across from him, close enough to see the tremor in his hands. "How many?"
"How many what?"
"How many babies, Dr. Voss?"
He looked toward the window. "I ran a clinic. Infants passed through every—"
"How many did you sell?"
"I never sold anyone." The euphemism came out smooth, long-practiced. "I arranged placements. Grateful families. Couples who couldn't—"
"You sold children," Maya said.
"I placed them where they'd thrive."
"The fever ward," Maya said. "That was the cover, wasn't it? Sick babies, nobody asks questions."
Voss's jaw worked. "The ward was real. The fevers were real. I simply — redirected certain cases. The infants I placed were healthier for it. Better fed, better housed—"
"Don't." Maya's voice went flat. "Don't tell me about better. You don't know a thing about better."
"You sold my daughter." Eleanor's voice cracked the glacier — raw at the edges now. "She was three months old. She had a fever of a hundred and three. I fell asleep in a chair, and you sold her."
Voss gripped the blanket. "You don't understand the pressures. The clinic was failing. The buyers were vetted. Good people. They paid for discretion, not for—"
"How much?" Maya asked.