"Whose handwriting?" Catherine asked.
"We cannot certify it yet. But the phrasing is his." Susan cleared her throat and read. "'The second child goes to the Webbs. They understand the terms. She will be raised properly, without interference, and prepared for what comes later.'"
"Prepared," Nora said. "For what?"
Susan turned the note over. "There is more. On the back. Three sentences. 'The mother cannot be permitted to choose. Her family money makes her untouchable. The girl will be an heir I can shape.'"
The rain seemed louder suddenly. Catherine did not move.
"Keep reading," Nora said quietly.
Susan looked at Catherine, and Catherine nodded once.
"'The other one is unnecessary,'" Susan read. "'She was easier to control.'"
Nora shot to her feet so fast her chair tipped back. "Which one is which? Which one is the unnecessary one?"
"Sit down," Catherine said. Her voice did not shake. She did not know why. "Please, Nora. Sit."
Nora sat, rigid. "Ada was ordered to hand a baby to a man in the parking lot. That was me, right? Twin A. The one they marked dead. So Iris was the chosen one. She was easier to control."
"Nora."
"Say it plainly." Nora's hands shook on the table. "He kept one daughter as a spare heir he could train like a dog, and he threw the other one away. Which is worse? Being raised by strangers as a project, or being left at an orphanage with a blanket?"
"Stop," Catherine said. "He did not throw you away."
"He marked me deceased." Nora's laugh was raw. "That is the paperwork version of thrown away."
Susan stepped forward, steady as a wall. "Nora. Hear me. We believe, based on Ada's testimony, that the handoff for Twin A was interrupted. Ada was supposed to give you to someone that night. She couldn't. She left you at Saint Mary's. That is why there is a death certificate but no placement for record A. He needed one baby to vanish quietly and the other to be usable."
"Usable." Nora stared at her. "You are a real wordsmith."
"I am a lawyer," Susan said. "I use the words that win in court."
Catherine rose and walked to the window. "He told me once, early in our marriage, that my family's money was a fortress. He said it with a smile, like a compliment." She turned back to the table. "He meant it as a diagnosis. I could not be touched. So he would build an heir he could touch. One he could shape from the first day, away from me, loyal to him."
"And me?" Nora said. "Where did I fit in his design?"
"You didn't," Susan said gently. "That is the point the prosecution will make. Two babies, two death certificates, too many questions. One death certificate, one quiet placement. Cleaner."
"Cleaner," Nora echoed.
Catherine looked at the note in Susan's hand. "Twenty-three years. I grieved a daughter in a fire. All that time he knew where both of them were. He knew one of them was alive, raised by people he paid, and he said nothing. He let me carry the locket. He let me set a place at every birthday dinner that never happened."
"You cannot have known," Susan said.
"The signs were there. The way he watched me at that restaurant. The flicker." Her voice dropped. "He kept one daughter as a controllable heir and discarded the other. And I slept beside him for twenty-three years."
Nora walked to the window and stood beside Catherine, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. "So what do we do with her? Iris. The chosen one."
"We tell her the truth," Catherine said.
"She won't want it," Nora said. "I wouldn't."
"No," Catherine said. "But it is hers. And nobody has ever given her anything that was truly hers." She looked down at her own wrist, where the locket had rested for twenty-three years, then at Nora's wrist, at the small heart-shaped mark. "Find her, Susan. Iris Webb. Quietly. I want to see my daughter's face before I tell her everything."
Chapter 13: The Webb House
The Webb house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac shaded by old maples, a gracious craftsman with window boxes of late-season flowers. Catherine stood at the foot of the walk for a full minute before she moved. In her purse sat the silver locket, and beside it the weight of everything she knew and could not yet say.
She had not come as a mother. She had come, on paper, as the Marlowe Foundation's chairwoman, scouting a junior architect for a community arts center the foundation meant to fund in the spring. A real project, real money, a real commission. She had asked for Iris Webb by name, citing her firm's small portfolio piece on the renovated library annex. Susan Park had arranged it in one phone call.
The door opened before she knocked.
"You must be Mrs. Marlowe," the young woman said. "I'm Iris Webb."
Catherine's breath stopped. It was Nora's face, the same clear brow, the same mouth, but finished differently, softened by twenty-three years of safety. Poised where Nora was guarded. Catherine had braced for this and it undid her anyway.
"Thank you for seeing me on short notice," Catherine said. Her voice sounded almost normal.
"Of course." Iris smiled, a bright unshadowed smile, and led her into a living room lined with books and framed architectural sketches. "Mother is out, so we have the house to ourselves. Can I get you coffee? Tea?"
"Tea would be lovely."
Iris moved to the kitchen with the ease of someone who had never been afraid in her own home. Catherine pressed her hand flat against her skirt to stop its trembling.
"You have a beautiful home," Catherine said when Iris returned with a tray.
"My father loved this house. He bought it before I was born and restored it himself." Iris set down the tray and sat across from her. "He died two years ago. I still expect him to walk in with sawdust on his sleeves."
Iris poured the tea with practiced grace. "So, the arts center. I read the brief your office sent. A performance space, classrooms, and a gallery for young artists? I already have ideas about the light."
Catherine had not expected to be charmed. She had not expected Iris to lean forward, eyes alight, and speak about clerestory windows and reclaimed brick and a courtyard where teenagers could eat lunch. It was Nora's quickness, Nora's intensity, turned toward building instead of surviving.
"You sound like you love this work," Catherine said.
"I do. Architecture is the one place where everything has to make sense. Load, span, balance." Iris laughed. "My father used to say I got that from him. He was an engineer at heart."
Catherine set down her cup. "Tell me about him. If you don't mind."
"Not at all. He was the kindest man I knew. Stern about school, hopeless about birthdays, he always forgot and then bought me something enormous the next day." Her smile turned tender. "He and Mother wanted a child for years. Then they got me."