He Held Her Son the Night I Lost Ours novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Willa Haliburton

The foundation chair's office was on the second floor of a converted warehouse, and Tara was already in it.

She sat in the visitor's chair in a gray dress, with her ankles crossed and a box of tissues on her knee.

She had not been seen in four days.

She looked up when Rafe opened the door, and her eyes went wet on cue.

"Willa," she said softly. "Oh, thank goodness. I told them you'd come."

The chair sat behind her desk with a printed letter in front of her and her mouth set in a line.

"Mrs. Lang came to see me at seven," she said. "She says you wrote it and handed her a copy, and she was too frightened to refuse."

"I didn't give her anything."

"I only wanted it to stop," Tara whispered. "You were so unhappy, and you asked me to help you. I know it sounds terrible. I'm trying to be a friend."

I looked at the paper on the desk.

It was a page and a half, in neat formal sentences.

I invented my miscarriage to leave my husband for my employer, with whom I had begun a relationship before I left New York. I have since lied to hospitals, to my mother-in-law and to the press. I regret the harm to Mr. Haliburton and to Mrs. Lang.

There was a signature at the foot of it.

Willa Haliburton.

I read it twice.

Then I went to the door and opened it, because I had heard someone on the stairs.

Sylvia came in first, in her navy blazer, with her chin high.

Clark came behind her, unshaven, carrying nothing.

"I called them from the car," I said to the chair. "I'd like you to hear them before I say anything."

The chair raised her eyebrows.

"This is highly irregular."

"So is the letter."

Sylvia crossed the carpet.

She held out her hand to the chair, and the chair, after a moment, gave her the paper.

Sylvia read it standing.

She read it to the end.

"Willa Haliburton," she said.

"Yes," said the chair.

"My daughter-in-law has never used that name in her life."

Tara's face shifted by a hair.

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