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“I emailed him a few hours ago.” Kaitlin managed a small smile.
“He’s always wanted a sister.”
“I’ve always wanted to know my real family. To find out where I belonged.”
“Perhaps,” Marissa hesitated, then asked, “perhaps we could… start this over? Get to know each other?”
Kaitlin considered the question. The hurt was still too fresh and heavy. The joy she dreamed of experiencing still mixed with the resentment she’d not expected. But underneath it all was a pull she couldn’t deny.
“Maybe,” she said finally. “We could try. Slowly.”
“Slowly,” Marissa agreed, hope creeping into her voice. “I’ve waited thirty-four years. I can be patient.”
They talked until the rain stopped, sharing fragments of their lives. Marissa told her about growing up with Diane, about the foster homes and the struggle to stay together. Kaitlin shared memories of London, of her adoptive parents, of the ache that had driven her across an ocean.
When Kaitlin finally rose to leave near dawn, exhausted but somehow lighter, Marissa walked her to the door.
“Thank you,” Marissa said softly. “For coming here. For giving me a chance to explain.”
I needed to hear it. All of it. Will you… could we have coffee or something sometime soon? Perhaps after you talk with Ryan? Actually, when you do meet with him, perhaps it’s best to keep this meeting between us. Ryan has been very protective of me since his father died. We can let him know about it later on, after you two have met.”
Kaitlin studied her mother’s face, seeing her own features reflected back with an extra thirty years of life carved into them. “I’ll call you.”
It wasn’t forgiveness, not yet. But it was a beginning.
As she drove back to her cottage through the pre-dawn darkness, Kaitlin felt the anger that had consumed her beginning to transform into something else. Grief for the years lost, perhaps. Or maybe hope for what might still be built from the ruins of the past.
Matt stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, watching shadows shift across the plaster as wind moved the bare branches outside his window. Three forty-seven a.m., according to the digital clock on his nightstand. He’d been lying there for hours, churning through the case details like a broken record player stuck on the same warped song.
The rain had stopped sometime after midnight, leaving behind the kind of crystalline silence that made every thought echo loudly in his mind. He could hear the distant crash of waves against the rocks below, a rhythm that usually helped him sleep but tonight only reminded him of bodies washing ashore from ships wrecked on the rocks of Widow’s Point. An island history that crept into his thoughts as he considered the secrets buried beneath decades of salt and time.
It wasn’t the island he thought he’d grown up on.
With a frustrated grunt, Matt threw back the covers and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Coffee at this hour would ensure he never got back to sleep, but sleep seemed unlikely anyway. His mind wouldn’t stop picking at the loose threads of the investigation, pulling at connections that felt significant but remained just out of reach.
He settled at his kitchen table with a yellow legal pad and pen, drawing a timeline across the top of the page. Two victims, both pregnant women who’d come to the island seeking help from the Foundation. Both had disappeared without a trace, their families left to wonder and worry for over thirty years.
The first victim, Margaret Straub, had been reported missing from Presque Isle in January, 1991. Agent Cook had gone to speak with the family. Matt still needed to speak with him about his findings or reach out to the family directly.
The second victim was Diane Hoffman, Marissa’s sister. Her story followed a classic pattern. A pregnant young woman, abandoned by her lover, seeking refuge at the Foundation. She’d made one phone call to Marissa, then vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed her whole.
The victims were now identified, but still not the murderer.
Matt tapped his pen against the paper, considering motives. The obvious suspects would be the babies’ fathers, men who might have wanted to eliminate the problem of an unwanted pregnancy. But that theory had a fatal flaw. Both women had come to the island specifically to give their babies up for adoption.
The fathers were already off the hook, freed of any financial or emotional responsibility. Why kill women who were solving their problems for them?
No, the motive lay elsewhere.
Matt drew a circle around the date of the foundation’s closure. According to the records he’d reviewed, the organization had struggled financially for years before finally shutting down. Yet, Mr. Holloway and Dr. Whitaker had been able to help Marissa Lane, arranging an adoption that netted her ten thousand dollars after the foundation pulled away.
Ten thousand was substantial for 1991, but it paled in comparison to what Kaitlin’s adoptive parents had paid. One hundred thousand pounds, she’d said. Even accounting for currency exchange and inflation, that was serious money.
Matt did quick calculations on his pad. If Holloway and Whitaker were running private adoptions outside the Foundation’s oversight, keeping the profits for themselves, the financial motive became clear. Desperate couples were willing to pay enormous sums for healthy infants. Young women in crisis, vulnerable and isolated, had no support systems to protect them.
He circled the names Holloway and Whitaker, then drew lines connecting them to dollar signs and question marks. Both men were dead, conveniently beyond the reach of justice.
Matt pulled out his laptop and began searching for information about Dr. James Whitaker. Kaitlin had mentioned a scandal, something that had driven the doctor to take his own life. The search results were sparse at first, mostly obituaries and professional listings. But persistence paid off, and eventually he found what he was looking for.
