“You let me mourn!” I screamed, the last remnants of my composure shattering into a million jagged pieces. Several parents nearby whipped their heads around to stare at us, their expressions shifting instantly from casual morning chit-chat to alarmed curiosity. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the whispers, the stares, or the social embarrassment. My child—my flesh and blood—had been stolen from me under the guise of medical tragedy, raised in secret by a man who had sworn an oath to protect families, not tear them apart. “You let me fall apart! You watched my marriage crumble into dust! You watched me spend six years crying into an empty nursery while my other daughter grew up thinking she was all alone in the world!”
“Keep your voice down,” Dr. Vance warned again, his tone hardening just a fraction, revealing the cold, calculated pragmatism of the man who had orchestrated this entire deception. He stepped closer, lowering his head so only I could hear the words that followed. “You want answers? You want to know why Eliza is standing right over there wearing a pastel pink backpack that matches your other daughter’s down to the very last zipper? Fine. But we are going to get into my car right now, drive to my office across town, and talk about this like civilized adults. Because if you make a scene here, you will terrify those two little girls, and believe me when I tell you that whatever anger you feel toward me right now is nothing compared to the danger of the situation they have been placed in.”
I looked past his shoulder. Junie and Lizzy were holding hands now, walking toward the double doors of the school building alongside the rest of their classmates. Lizzy turned her head back just once, looking directly at me with the exact same inquisitive tilt of the head that Junie always used when she was trying to figure out a difficult puzzle. The physical pain in my chest was so intense that I momentarily feared my heart was giving out.
“Fine,” I whispered, wiping a hot, furious tear from my cheek with the back of my trembling hand. “We’ll go. But if you think for one second that you can walk away from this with vague explanations and medical jargon, you are entirely mistaken. I want my daughter back, Dr. Vance. And if you stand in my way this time, God help me, I will destroy everything you’ve ever built.”
He gave a slow, solemn nod, turning to lead me toward the parking lot where his sedan was parked in the shade of an old oak tree. As I followed him across the pavement, my mind raced through a thousand terrifying possibilities. If he hadn’t stolen her out of malice, then who had put him up to this? Who else knew the truth? And most importantly of all, why did he look so genuinely afraid of whatever forces had kept my family apart for all these agonizing years?
