Phần I
"You know each other," Nora said.
It wasn't a question. She could see it in the way they looked at one another across the table: not like strangers, but like two old enemies who'd once fought a war over the same small piece of land.
"We've met once," Diane said. She hadn't taken her eyes off Grace. "October 2004. At the gate of the lodge."
"It was your first week of kindergarten," Grace said quietly to Nora. "I'd driven out from Ohio. I didn't want anything. I swear I didn't. I just wanted to see you. Through the fence. For five minutes."
"She stood at my gate for an hour," Diane said. "In the rain. The security guard called me. I came down the drive in my car, and I rolled down the window, and I knew. I knew her face the second I saw it." She smiled faintly. "She has your chin."
"And you got out your checkbook," Grace said.
"And I got out my checkbook." Diane didn't blink. "One hundred thousand dollars. On the hood of my car, in the rain. And you took it."
"It's in the account," Grace said to Nora, a little desperately. "That check too. Every cent."
Diane finally turned to look at her daughter.
"I'm going to tell you what I buried, Nora. Since everyone else seems to be confessing tonight."
She folded her hands on the table. Not a napkin. Not a washcloth. Just her own two hands, holding each other.
"When I came home from Arizona, it was almost Christmas. There was a little blonde girl sleeping in Charlotte's crib. My mother said to me, 'She needed a mother, and you needed a daughter.' That was all. And I didn't ask." Her voice stayed perfectly level. "I didn't ask for five years. I didn't ask where you came from, or who you belonged to, or what it cost. I named you Nora, because I couldn't bear to call you by a dead girl's name. And I loved you. God help me, I loved you from the first morning."
Grace looked down at the table.
"And then this woman stood at my gate in the rain," Diane went on, "and I knew exactly what my mother had done. And I had a choice. I could have called the police. I could have given you back." She held Nora's eyes. "I chose you. That's what I buried, sweetheart. Not a baby. A choice. I've been sitting on top of it for twenty-two years."
Nobody spoke. In the kitchen, the radio was playing an old Fleetwood Mac song to no one.
"You also bought a police captain," Nora said.
"My mother did. In 1999. I found out much later." Diane glanced at Grace, and something sharp came into her face. "Her investigator dug up something about the detective. Brennan. Something that made it very easy for Captain Dolan to take him off the case."
Across the table, Grace flinched as though she'd been hit.
Nora saw it. She filed it away.
"Is Charlotte alive?" she asked.
Diane turned back to her. The sharpness was gone. Her face went still and sad.
"Charlotte died in April of 2001," she said. "Your father told you that. It's true."
"Marisol Reyes has gotten a birthday card from Bend, Oregon every June for twenty-six years. With a picture of Charlotte growing up."
"I don't know anything about any cards." Diane stood and buttoned her coat. "Come with me. Right now. I'll show you where she is."
Nora looked at Grace.
"Go," Grace said softly. "I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere this time."