CHICAGO
May 1982
“I’M GOING TO QUIT MY JOB,” FRANK SAID. “I NEED TO LEAVE Garrison Ford.”
“To get away from him?” Marla asked. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying.
“No. To take him with me. I need to keep Thomas Mitchell as close as possible if this is going to work. I need to be the only one he hires to look for Angela. The only one he trusts.”
“He’ll never stop looking,” Greta said. “Angela was adamant about that. If it’s not Frank, then it will be someone else.”
“I need to control the information he receives,” Frank continued. “He needs to believe I’m making progress. I’ll find something to feed him for a while, but ultimately my search will come up empty. I’ll make him believe me. What’s important is for him to think I’m looking for her. As long as he believes this, he won’t look himself. He won’t employ anyone else. The man trusts me, and I plan to build and keep that trust.”
“For how long?”
“For her entire life,” Frank said.
Marla looked off. Her eyes wandered to the stairs, and Frank knew she was thinking of the child sleeping in her crib.
“What will we do for money, Frank? How will we support ourselves?”
“I’ll hang my own shingle. I’ve got enough experience to go off on my own. And he’s willing to pay me for my services.”
“Thomas Mitchell?”
“Yes. He needs an attorney to file his appeals and handle his finances. And he’ll pay me on the side to continue my search. He’ll be my first client.”
“Frank,” Marla said. “It’s just . . . not what I imagined.”
“Please,” Greta said, looking at Marla. “I need your help. We need your help. You’re the perfect couple to love this child. Imagine what sort of life she might have if the truth is ever discovered. Imagine if the public discovers that Thomas has a child from the wife he was imprisoned for killing. And how could she ever live a normal life, knowing her father killed a string of women?”
Marla began crying again. All three of them had been pulled into an impossible situation. All three thought of the child sleeping peacefully in her crib. An innocent child who deserved none of what waited for her. Marla slowly shifted her gaze to Greta.
“Where is she? Where’s Angela?”
Greta let out a long breath, and then it was she who began to cry. “I tried to save her. There was too much blood.”
* * *
Something was wrong. The bleeding was intense and constant as Greta examined Angela’s pelvis. Preeclampsia had forced bed rest for the past few weeks, and spotting had gotten Greta concerned. But Angela had insisted Greta treat her without involving a physician. It was too risky, she had argued. And Greta couldn’t disagree that with Angela’s face on the news during Thomas’s trial, she would be immediately recognized. So Greta had treated the blood pressure issues, forced bed rest, and monitored her like a hawk. But Angela had woken tonight, her water having broken. She was hemorrhaging badly. Now she was in the throes of delivery.
“Push, Angela. Push.”
“I can’t,” Angela said.
She was covered in sweat as she lay on the bed. A surgical gown hung in front of her to block the view of her lower half. Greta’s head was only intermittently visible as she worked to deliver the baby.
“I know it hurts, but you have to push, Angela!”
“No. I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Okay,” Greta said, shaking her head. “We’re going to the hospital, sweetheart. Something is wrong. You’re bleeding too much.”
“No! We can’t go to the hospital. He’ll be set free. And he’ll know about the baby. Please!”
Greta looked back down. The hemorrhaging had intensified. She swallowed down the fear that rose in her throat, then nodded her head. She worried about the baby, but more so about Angela. Her home, despite the equipment she had gathered over the past few months, was simply not equipped to handle such complications. Greta was not equipped, either.
“Then I need you to push. Do you hear me?”
Angela did. She pushed and pushed.