Ruiz stepped beside Claire. “Dr. Pike agreed to testify this afternoon. So did a records supervisor who helped alter the files. The broker placed the girls through a family connection.”
Claire turned toward him.
“A family connection?” she repeated.
Ruiz looked at the paper in his hand before meeting her eyes again. “Denise Colter’s sister is related to you.”
The name landed a second later.
Denise.
Claire’s cousin from Kentucky.
Denise with sympathy cards and casseroles.
Denise who had sat at Claire’s kitchen table after the funeral, holding both her hands and saying, God must have had another plan for them.
The blood drained from Claire’s face.
Ruiz spoke quietly now, as though the worst had already been said and yet somehow there was still more. “We have reason to believe your daughters were placed with Samuel and Denise Colter outside Asheville, North Carolina.”
Claire felt the house around her recede.
Denise.
Not strangers. Not faceless traffickers and distant adoptive parents who might never have guessed. Family. Blood. Someone who had watched Claire mourn and called it tragedy while tucking Claire’s children into bed each night.
Margaret finally gave a small shrug as the officer took hold of her arm. “They had a better life than you could have given them.”
Claire turned and slapped her.
The sound cracked through the foyer.
Everyone went still.
Margaret’s head snapped to the side. A red mark bloomed across one pale cheek. She looked back slowly, eyes bright with fury.
Claire did not apologize.
“If I ever hear your voice near my daughters again,” she said, each word clear and cold, “it will be the last thing you regret.”
One of the officers moved Margaret toward the door.
Margaret went, but not before looking once more at Ethan.
“You’ll thank me eventually,” she said.
Ethan flinched as though struck.
The door closed behind her.
The foyer fell silent except for the rain and Claire’s uneven breathing.
