Chapter 4: What Amanda Left Behind
She was staying at a hotel in Evanston under a name I didn't recognize.
My father had the address written on a folded piece of paper in his jacket pocket — the same jacket that was still around my shoulders when we walked through the lobby and out into the cold air off the lake.
He handed it to me without ceremony, the way he handed me things when he wanted me to have time to think before he said anything else.
I read the name on the paper.
Elena Marsh.
"She's been using it for two years," he said.
"Since she left Chicago the second time."
"The second time," I repeated.
"She tried to leave once before.
Three years ago, right around when she came to the shop." He opened the passenger door of his truck.
"Grant found her.
Brought her back."
I got in.
He walked around to the driver's side and started the engine without rushing.
"Dad.
What was in that folder?"
He pulled out onto Michigan Avenue.
The city was still going about its business.
Taxis.
A couple walking a dog.
A light changing from green to red.
"Financial records," he said.
"Transfers.
Accounts in Douglas's name that shouldn't exist.
And a document — a medical document — that Amanda signed under what she described to me as considerable pressure."
"What kind of medical document?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"The kind that ends a pregnancy," he said.
"With a signature that her handwriting analyst — she hired one, two years after the fact — determined was consistent with signing under duress."
The city kept moving outside the window.
"She was pregnant," I said.
"Seven weeks.
Douglas told Grant the child would complicate the succession structure.
Those were the words she used when she told me.
The succession structure." His hands were steady on the wheel.
"Grant didn't stop it."
I thought about five years of Douglas asking me about an heir.
The word responsibilities.
The way he said Amanda understood legacy.
"He knew," I said.
"He arranged it."
I sat with that for a long moment.
"Why didn't she go to the police?"
"She tried.
The family has two city council members and a relationship with the state's attorney's office that goes back twenty years.
The officer she spoke to called Douglas before she got back to her car." He glanced over.
"That's in the folder too.
She recorded the call."
We drove in silence for a few minutes.
"Why did she call you last week?" I said.
"After three years."
"Because she saw the party announcement in the Tribune society pages.
Your photo.
Your name." He stopped at a light.
"She said she'd been watching from a distance.
Waiting to see if you were safe.
When she saw that photo — the way you were standing next to Grant — she said she recognized something in your face."
"What?"
"She said you looked the way she looked in year four." He looked at me.
"Like someone who had learned to smile at the right moments."
The light changed.
He drove.
"She wants to give you the folder," he said.
"Not a copy.
The original.
Everything.
She said it was always meant for the woman who came after her.
She just didn't know your name yet."
We pulled up outside a hotel I didn't know, a quiet one set back from the main road with a green awning and no valet.
My father turned off the engine.
"She's in room 214," he said.
"I'll wait here."
"You're not coming up?"
"She asked to speak with you alone." He looked straight ahead through the windshield.
"She said there are things she needs to tell you that she couldn't say in front of a man.
Even me."
I sat there for a moment with his jacket still around my shoulders and the folded paper in my hand.
"Dad.
What if she changes her mind?
What if she decides it's too dangerous?"
He reached over and put his hand over mine.
His palm was rough and warm and completely certain.
"She won't," he said.
"She's been waiting three years to do this.
She's not changing her mind tonight."
I got out of the truck.
The hotel lobby was small and quiet.
A woman at the desk looked up and then back down.
I took the stairs.
Room 214 was at the end of a short corridor.
I knocked twice.
A pause.
Then the sound of a chain being unlatched.
The door opened.
She was younger than I expected.
Mid-thirties, dark circles under careful eyes, hair pulled back.
She was wearing a plain gray sweater and holding a mug of tea with both hands like it was the only warm thing in the room.
She looked at me for a long moment.
"You're Willa," she said.
"Yes."
She stepped back to let me in.
On the small table by the window sat a manila folder, thick with papers, held shut with a rubber band.
"I'm sorry it took me this long," Amanda said.
"I kept telling myself I was protecting you by staying quiet." She set down the mug.
"I think I was protecting myself."
"You're here now," I said.
She nodded.
She picked up the folder and held it out.
"Everything is in order," she said.
"Dates, amounts, names, the recording.
My attorney in New York has a copy.
She's been waiting for my call." Her hand was steady.
"The moment you decide to move forward, she's ready."
I took the folder.
It was heavier than I expected.
"There's one more thing," Amanda said.
She sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Grant is going to tell you that I'm unstable.
That I fabricated things.
That I have a history of — " she paused — "making accusations."
"I figured."
"Douglas built that story carefully.
There are two people who will testify to it.
Both of them are on the family payroll." She looked up at me.
"But there is one person who isn't."
"Who?"
"The officer," she said.
"The one who called Douglas the day I went to the police.
His name is in the folder.
He retired eight months ago.
He's been trying to find me ever since." She folded her hands in her lap.
"He wants to make a statement."
I looked at the folder in my hands.
Then I looked at her.
"Amanda.
Why are you doing this?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Because I was twenty-nine years old and I was alone in a room with two men who had already decided what was going to happen," she said.
"And nobody came." She met my eyes.
"I've spent three years making sure that doesn't happen to you."
My phone buzzed in my clutch.
Grant's name on the screen.
May you like
I turned it face-down on the table without answering.
"Tell me about the officer," I said.
