“I walked into my own mansion expecting my wife to run into my arms, but instead I found my family celebrating my money while the woman I loved was missing.

her eyes.

I stood slowly. “You knew Rose Avery.”

Margaret turned back toward us.

Her face looked like it had been washed clean of every mask.

“Yes,” she said.

Emma rose from her chair.

“How?”

Margaret’s voice was thin. “She was my cousin.”

The room seemed to shift under my feet.

Emma stared at her. “Your cousin took me in?”

“For six months,” Margaret said.

“And then?”

“She became ill.”

“That’s what I was told,” Emma said. “But no one ever told me where I came from after that. No one ever came back.”

My mother looked toward the floor.

Emma’s voice trembled. “Did you know where I was?”

Margaret did not answer.

That was answer enough.

I felt anger rise, but Emma spoke before I could.

“You knew a child connected to your family disappeared into the system,” she said. “And years later, when your son married her, you