They broke fifteen years in half.
Julian gripped the back of a chair.
“And Isabella?”
“She died two days later from her injuries.”
He bowed his head.
For fifteen years he had been told Isabella died in the nursery while trying to reach a baby who had already been lost.
The real story was worse because it included time.
Two days.
Two days in which his sister had been alive.
Two days in which someone could have called him.
“Did she ask for me?”
Margaret did not answer quickly enough.
Julian’s voice broke.
“Did she ask for me?”
“Yes.”
He walked away from the chair because he was afraid he would throw it.
Margaret began explaining.
The fire investigation had created confusion. Isabella’s infant daughter had been taken to a different hospital with smoke exposure. Ruth Reed was a pediatric nursing assistant there. Isabella, knowing she was dying, begged Ruth not to let Margaret take the baby until Julian knew the truth about several family financial arrangements Isabella had uncovered.
“What arrangements?” Julian asked.
Margaret’s mouth hardened.
“That is irrelevant now.”
“It became relevant the moment you erased a child.”
The baby was discharged into temporary protective care. Margaret used family attorneys to challenge Isabella’s wishes, but Ruth had already agreed to become an emergency foster placement. Then paperwork changed.
Julian heard the passive language and hated it.
“Paperwork doesn’t change itself.”
Margaret looked at him.
“No.”
She had paid a private attorney to keep the Vale surname out of the child’s records while a permanent placement was arranged. Ruth later adopted her.
Margaret told the family that the baby had died.
She told Julian there was no body because the infant’s remains could not be separately identified after the fire.
