Chapter 4 - Thirty-Seven Letters
The letters were not destroyed.
Eleanor had kept them.
That fact somehow made the betrayal worse.
Investigators found thirty-one in a locked drawer in her private suite at Rosehaven.
Six remained missing.
The envelopes were unopened.
Marcus recognized his own addresses written across decades.
Boarding school.
Yale.
His first apartment.
Rosehaven.
Some had “RETURN TO SENDER” stamped across them even though Anna had never received them back.
Eleanor had preserved evidence of her own deception.
“Why keep them?” Olivia asked.
Detective Grant answered, “Control.”
Eleanor's attorneys claimed she retained them because Anna had violated a no-contact agreement.
No valid no-contact agreement had yet been produced.
Marcus sat in Olivia's temporary apartment and opened the first letter.
He was seven when Anna wrote it.
Dear Marcus,
You don't know me yet. I hope someday you will.
I saw your school photograph in the newspaper when your father opened the children's library. You have his smile.
Marcus stopped.
Olivia said nothing.
He opened another.
Age twelve.
I heard you broke your arm playing hockey. Diane says you are all right. I wanted to come, but I have been told it would upset you.
Marcus looked up.
“Diane told her things.”
“Yes,” Olivia said.
“While telling me nothing.”
He opened the letter written for his eighteenth birthday.
I promised myself I would wait until you were old enough to decide for yourself. I sent my number to your father. If you never call me, I will respect it. I only need you to know I did not leave because I stopped loving you.
Marcus covered his face.
Olivia moved closer.
He whispered, “They let me think she abandoned me.”
“What did Eleanor tell you?”
“That I was born through a private arrangement because she couldn't carry a pregnancy.”
Olivia frowned.
“Not even an affair?”
“No. She told me an anonymous woman agreed to remain uninvolved.”
“They erased Anna into a transaction.”
Marcus nodded.
That evening he called the number in the most recent letter.
Disconnected.
Diane provided Anna's current address.
Marcus did not immediately drive to Maine.
Instead he hired an independent investigator.
Olivia understood.
He needed facts before emotion.
The investigator confirmed Anna Rowan Ellis, age sixty, lived in Portland.
Retired pediatric nurse.
Widowed five years earlier.
No criminal record.
No psychiatric commitments.
No extortion lawsuits.
Nothing resembling the unstable predator Eleanor described.
Then Thomas asked to meet.
He arrived carrying three archival boxes.
“I thought these might matter.”
Thomas had photographed Rosehaven events since the 1980s.
Not professionally for the family.
He simply took pictures of everything.
In one envelope were images from the summer Marcus was born.
Richard walking near the greenhouse with Anna.
Anna visibly pregnant.
Diane beside her.
Another showed Eleanor watching from the veranda.
“She knew before the birth,” Olivia said.
Thomas nodded.
“She knew everything.”
Marcus stared at him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Thomas looked ashamed.
“Because it wasn't my story.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“Apparently that sentence destroyed my childhood.”
Thomas accepted it.
“I deserve that.”
He pulled out another photograph.
Anna standing at Rosehaven's front gate when Marcus was approximately three.
A security guard blocked her.
Eleanor stood on the steps.
Marcus stared.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Anna begged to see you.”
“And?”
“Eleanor threatened to call police.”
Marcus's jaw clenched.
Thomas continued.
“Richard came outside later.”
“What did he do?”
“He gave Anna an envelope.”
“Money?”
“I don't know.”
Thomas had photographed it.
On the back Richard had written something.
The enlarged image showed:
SAFE DEPOSIT — C.P. MUST NOT KNOW.
Calvin Price.
The family attorney.
The brass-box key likely opened the safe-deposit box.
A subpoena and court authorization followed because the trust dispute and suspected fraud were now under investigation.
The box was held at a private bank in Greenwich.
Inside were:
Original trust statements.
Anna's birth records for Marcus.
A copy of the temporary guardianship agreement.
A supposed adoption consent.
Richard's handwritten journals.
And financial statements showing trust distributions totaling $14.7 million over three decades.
Paid primarily into Marbridge Family Investments.
Marcus stared.
“That isn't forty million.”
Olivia looked at the documents.
“That's distributions. Not principal.”
The underlying 18% ownership interest had also been transferred.
To a Vale Heritage voting trust.
The transfer document contained Anna's signature.
Anna supposedly signed it twenty-nine years earlier.
Diane looked at the photocopy and whispered, “That isn't her signature.”
Marcus asked, “How do you know?”
“Because I watched Calvin practice it.”
Everyone turned.
Diane began shaking.
Olivia stared at her.
“You watched him forge Anna's signature?”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Diane's voice broke.
“Because by then I had already done something worse.”
Marcus looked at her.
“What?”
Diane started crying.
“The six missing letters.”
“What about them?”
“I didn't give them to Eleanor.”
“Where are they?”
Diane looked at Marcus.
“I destroyed them.”
His face changed.
“Why?”
“Because those were the letters Anna sent after your father tried to tell you the truth.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
May you like
Diane whispered:
“And one of them told you Eleanor wasn't the only person who forged the adoption.”
