The nine-year-old who crawled into my bed after her father died.
The fifteen-year-old who had looked at me during breakfast and asked whether a lie could ever be considered protection.
A little after three in the morning, I pulled into a driveway beside a small blue house.
I knocked.
A man answered the door.
He looked older than he had in Mallory’s adoption file, but I recognized him immediately.
“Dean Mercer?”
His expression shifted.
“Yes?”
“I’m Meredith Hale.”
He frowned.
“Mallory’s mother.”
His face turned white.
“That’s impossible.”
A woman appeared behind him in the hallway.
She stared at me.
“Oh my God.”
I stepped inside.
“Where is my daughter?”
The woman—Corinne—covered her mouth.
“She told us you were dead.”
“Well, I’m standing here.”
Dean looked stunned.
“We didn’t know.”
“You never checked?”
“She had the adoption papers,” Corinne said. “She had my letter. She knew the hospital’s name, the date she was born, everything.”
