The Hungry Girl Wore My Daughter's Locket

CHAPTER 3 - THE LETTERS IN HER DESK

The police found Anna near the bus terminal shortly before midnight.

She was unconscious on a bench, still holding Maisie's pink hair ribbon.

Doctors stabilized her, but she refused to see me when she woke.

"I don't blame her," I told the nurse.

Eight years earlier, Anna had asked me to accept Daniel Reed.

I called him unsuitable.

Uneducated.

Unworthy of our family.

Anna chose him anyway.

I told her that if she walked out, she should never return.

Those words became the last ones she heard from me.

Daniel died in a workplace accident two years later. Anna was pregnant and alone.

She wrote to me then.

I never received the letter.

While Anna rested, I returned to my estate and entered Veronica's private office.

Her desk was locked.

I forced it open.

Inside were dozens of envelopes in Anna's handwriting.

Birthday cards.

Photographs of Maisie.

Medical reports.

Requests for help.

Veronica had hidden every one.

The most recent letter explained that Anna needed a compatible family donor for treatment.

She had not asked for money.

She had asked me to take a blood test.

Veronica appeared in the doorway.

"I was protecting you," she said.

"From my daughter?"

"From scandal. If Anna returned, she would inherit half the estate. What would happen to our future?"

"Our future ended when you kicked pearls of hope from a hungry child's hands."

She accused Anna of coming back for money.

I placed the medical letter in front of her.

"She came back because she wanted to live long enough to raise her daughter."

Veronica's face lost its color.

I ended our engagement and ordered her to leave.

Then I found another envelope beneath the letters.

It contained copies of payments Veronica had made to the investigator searching for Anna.

She had paid him to report that my daughter was dead.

My phone rang.

The hospital had received my blood test.

I was a possible donor.

But the doctor had discovered something else in Anna's medical records.

She had already named Maisie's legal guardian if she died.

It was not me.

It was Veronica.