Chapter 5 - THE SILVER LOCKET
My adoptive mother kept my childhood belongings in a storage unit.
Daniel Bennett, my adoptive brother, brought the boxes to the hospital.
At the bottom of one was a faded red winter coat.
Inside its torn lining, Dr. Brooks found a silver locket.
The front carried a tiny letter A.
Inside was a microfilm strip.
The images showed bank transfers, medical payments, court orders, and adoption records connected to Richard and Diane.
Anna had collected proof that the Mercer family sold guardianships and manipulated inheritances through false psychiatric diagnoses.
One account was still active.
It contained twelve million dollars.
The beneficiary was Mark.
He claimed he knew nothing about it.
Ortiz traced recent withdrawals.
Payments went to Saint Catherine’s, Dr. Vale, and a private investigator.
The investigator had followed me for two years.
Photographs documented my work, friendships, medical visits, and routes home.
Diane knew every part of my life.
Mark insisted he had never seen them.
Then Ortiz found his password on the investigator’s online account.
He stopped denying everything.
“I checked the reports.”
“Why?”
“To make sure you were safe.”
I laughed, and the movement tore the wound in my lip.
“You watched your mother follow me.”
“I thought she was watching for Anna.”
“You thought my dead mother might return?”
Mark looked away.
He did not believe Anna was dead.
Neither did Diane.
The surveillance was not only about me.
They were waiting for her.
Ortiz used the microfilm to obtain federal warrants.
The accounts were frozen.
Dr. Vale’s clinic was searched.
He had disappeared.
His records had been burned.
But an assistant recovered one appointment book from a locked drawer.
Anna’s name appeared on a recent date.
Three weeks earlier.
My biological mother was alive.
She had visited Vale.
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The note beside her name read:
RETURNED FOR DAUGHTER.
