She had Nora's face. The same cheekbones, the same mouth, the same dark eyes looking straight into the lens. This was not a resemblance. It was a mirror.
"Her wrist," Catherine said, and her voice broke on the word.
The girl's right hand rested on her knee, and on her inner left wrist, small and clear and unmistakable, was the heart-shaped mark. The same mark as the newborn in the locket. The same mark as Nora's.
"But it is not Nora," Catherine whispered. She picked up the photograph with both hands. "This is a different child. A different sweater, a different room. Two girls with my daughter's face and my daughter's mark."
Susan had gone pale. She lifted the first sheet and read aloud.
"'Placement record. Female infant, approximately three days old, delivered into the care of the Webbs, per arrangement.'" She stopped. "'Name assigned: Iris Webb.'"
The name fell into the room and stayed there.
"Iris," Catherine repeated. It felt strange in her mouth.
"There is more," Susan said. She had gone very professional, which was how Susan sounded when she was furious. "A payment ledger. Monthly transfers from a Marlowe account to Marcus Webb for twenty-three years. Noted as 'care arrangement.'"
"Marcus Webb," Catherine said. "Theodore's business partner. Dead two years."
"Yes."
Catherine read the second sheet. A letter, typed, unsigned, the paper thin with age.
"'The girl is placed as agreed,'" she read. "'She will be raised as the Webbs' own child. She will not be told. The other infant has been disposed of. No further contact will be made.'"
She set the letter down very carefully, as if it could cut her.
"'The other infant has been disposed of,'" she repeated. "That is Nora. My daughter, disposed of like a debt."
"He took one and threw the other one away," Susan said quietly.
"He took them both. He let me mourn one empty grave while he gave one daughter to his business partner and handed the other to the cold."
Susan reached across the table and took her hand. Susan did not cry. Susan had never cried in the eleven years Catherine had known her. But her voice was not steady.
"There is a third sheet."
Catherine turned it over. Dr. Peter Lang's handwriting, neat and clinical even here, as if neatness could make it clean.
"'I falsified the birth records at the request of Theodore Marlowe,'" she read, and each word landed like a stone in deep water. "'Two live births were recorded as one, and one death as two. I have carried this for twenty-three years. If this file is ever opened, it is because I could no longer carry it alone.'"
Catherine felt very cold.
She looked at the photograph again. The girl with Nora's face, the heart-shaped mark on her wrist, the stranger's smile. Somewhere there was a woman of twenty-three who did not know her name was Iris, who did not know she had a sister, who did not know her whole life was a document in an unmarked packet.
"She looks exactly like Nora," Catherine said. "Twenty-three years, and I never knew. I raised no one. I held no one. I was a mother for eleven minutes, twice, and the world told me I was a mother of no one."
"You are their mother," Susan said.
Catherine touched the photograph with one fingertip, very gently, the way she had touched the locket all these years, as if tenderness could reach backward through time.
She said it so softly that Susan had to lean forward to hear.
"I didn't lose one child. I lost both of you."
Chapter 12: Easier to Control
The files lay open on the table, and Catherine sat at one end with Nora across from her while Susan Park stood at the window.
"Start at the top again," Catherine said. "Slowly."
Susan read from the first page. "Saint Anne's Hospital. Birth record A, twenty-three years ago. Female infant, full term, healthy." She set it down and lifted the next. "Birth record B. Female infant, full term, healthy. Two minutes later."
"And the death certificate?" Nora asked.
"Attached to record A," Susan said. "Cause listed as smoke inhalation. Same night as the nursery fire."
Nora's voice went flat. "That's me. The one he marked dead."
Catherine pressed her fingers against the table. "And the other child?"
"No death certificate exists for the second infant," Susan said. "There is a transfer memo instead, unsigned, on obstetrics letterhead. A private placement." She looked up. "Arranged by Theodore Marlowe. The infant was placed with Marcus Webb and his wife Helen."
"Marcus Webb," Nora said. "The business partner?"
"His business partner," Catherine said.
"Renamed," Susan said. "Registered as their adopted daughter. Birth certificate reissued under a new name." She slid a folded page across the table. "Iris Webb."
Catherine read the name twice. It sat on the page like a small, bright coin. "My daughter has a name," she said softly.
Nora leaned forward, elbows on the table. "So he just took one of us? Like picking a puppy?"
"Money changed hands," Susan said. "A trust was established. Generous. The trust was decisive."
"Decisive," Nora repeated. "You mean they were bought."
"The money was structured to make saying no very difficult," Susan said. "Helen signed everything. Marcus witnessed. The trust paid out quarterly for twenty-three years."
"Keep going," Catherine said.
Susan drew out the last folder, the seal broken that morning. "This was not with the hospital records. It was in Dr. Lang's personal file." She hesitated. "A note. Undated. Handwritten."