‘Thank you. Are you in a position to talk? It’s important, and you might find it shocking.’
‘Yes, go ahead,’ Maggie said, though nothing could shock her anymore.
‘When I came home, I saw a newspaper story online about your husband’s conviction for murder. They have his picture, next to Anna’s. Anna’s name is under the caption. I’m looking at it right now.’
‘Yes.’ Maggie sighed, pained. ‘He was convicted of her murder. I really should’ve called you, I thought about it so many times.’
‘No, that’s not why I’m calling. This picture in the newspaper, which says Anna Desroches in the caption, is not a picture of Anna Desroches. This is not the Anna I knew and treated. She looks like Anna, but it’s not Anna.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘I’m texting you the photo that’s in the newspaper, which reads Anna Desroches.’ Ellen finished the sentence, and Maggie’s text alert chimed.
‘Hold on a sec, okay?’ Maggie put Ellen on speaker, then scrolled to her texts. On her phone screen was a photo of Anna, slightly pixelated. Just looking at it hurt Maggie’s heart. ‘Yes, that’s Anna.’
‘No, it’s not. That’s my point. The girl identified as Anna Desroches in the newspaper is not the girl that I know as Anna Desroches. Or that we know as Anna Desroches at Congreve. As I say, she looks similar, but it’s not Anna.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Maggie couldn’t understand what she was being told.
‘Hang on, I’m texting you a photo of my patient, your daughter Anna Desroches. It’s a picture I took of us together, on her birthday last March.’
‘Okay,’ Maggie said slowly, and in the next moment, her text alert chimed again and a photo popped onto her phone screen. It showed Ellen, grinning with her arm around a young girl with blue eyes, a big smile, and dimples. The girl looked a lot like Anna, that is, the Anna that Maggie had known as her daughter.
‘Maggie, are you there? Are you okay? I warned you, it’s shocking.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Maggie said, repeating herself. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the photo. ‘Are you saying this is Anna, in this photo with you?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ Ellen’s tone turned adamant, even urgent. ‘This is your daughter, Anna Ippoliti Desroches, with me. It’s a selfie. As I said, we took the picture last March on her seventeenth birthday.’
‘I’m confused. Is Anna with you now?’ Maggie didn’t understand. It didn’t make any sense.
‘No. She’s missing. Anna is missing. She must have disappeared over Spring Break, last year.’
‘Wait, what?’ Maggie’s mind reeled. ‘So the person that I thought was my daughter wasn’t my daughter?’
‘Yes, the last time I saw Anna was before Spring Break, on April 3 at our regular Monday appointment, and we talked about her reaching out to you. We talked about everything I told you when we met at Graham Center.’
‘So then what happened to her?’
‘We don’t understand what happened or how. But we know that the person in the newspaper is not Anna. Even though the girl in the newspaper looks like Anna and seems about the same age, it’s not Anna.’
‘It’s really not Anna?’ Maggie felt stunned. She squinted at the selfie. ‘This is my daughter? In the photo with you? So the girl I took home was only pretending to be my daughter?’
‘Yes, we believe she must have been.’
‘What’s her name?’ Maggie asked, dumbfounded. ‘Who is she? Was she?’
‘We don’t know. I just discovered this a few hours ago, myself, and I went to the Head of School Morris Whitaker and Assistant Head of School Jack Amundsen. I’m with them now. We’ve already contacted the Congreve and the Maine State Police.’
‘My God.’ Maggie thought back to her visit to Congreve, that night. ‘But I walked her to her dorm. She went inside and packed while I went to see you. Didn’t anybody wonder who she was and why she was taking Anna’s things?’
‘We wondered that ourselves, so we contacted the students, who are now seniors. One of them remembered the girl because she looked like Anna. The imposter, for lack of a better term, told them she was a paralegal sent over by James Huntley, a lawyer in town.’
‘I know him. He handled Anna’s trust.’
‘Yes, we checked with him. He’s on vacation in Florida but we reached him there. He did not send over a paralegal, and he had no knowledge of this. He concurs that the girl in the photo is not Anna.’ Ellen cleared her throat. ‘In addition, our records show that our registrar received an email from Anna’s email address at 9:02 A.M. on Friday, April 21, telling them she was withdrawing from Congreve that very day. We do not know if that email came from the real Anna or the imposter. We assume word got around at Parker, and that’s the reason that no one questioned the imposter when she packed Anna’s room. She left campus that night, with you.’
‘An imposter.’ Maggie’s head was spinning. She had so many questions, but only one mattered. ‘Where’s the real Anna? Where’s my daughter?’
‘We don’t know. You may want to fly up. There’s a snowstorm predicted but if you hurry, you can get in. Text me when you arrive. Come directly to the Administration Rotunda.’
‘I’m on my way, bye.’ Maggie hung up, then rose, texting Kathy. ‘Caleb!’
Chapter Sixty-five
Noah, After
Noah didn’t know what CO Evesham had meant by they’re expecting you, but it couldn’t be good. He walked behind CO Evesham along the second tier of Cellblock C, which was fully 250 feet long, with two tiers of cells on either side. The cells were full, two inmates to a cell, and they were locked at this hour, almost lights out. Noah kept his eyes front as they passed, fixed on CO Evesham, whose meaty build strained the seams of his black uniform with epaulets and gold-and-black PADOC patches.
Inmates came to their cell doors, leaning their elbows on the crossbars, yelling, ‘Hey, doc,’ ‘Yo!’ and one inmate called, ‘The Doctor is in!’ to laughter. It wasn’t like on TV, with inmates hollering lurid things like ‘fresh meat,’ but the reality was more sinister. Noah sensed an undercurrent rippling down the cellblock as he passed, like a dark undertow rolling beneath the surface.
‘This is you.’ CO Evesham stopped at a cell toward the end of the row, where his cellmate, an older inmate, was lying on the bottom bunk, reading an old Louis L’Amour paperback, his legs crossed at the ankles. The man was about seventy years old, short and slight, with wispy gray hair, a straight nose that held a crooked pair of bifocals, and a benign grin, though appearances could be deceiving in prison. At MCCF, it had been the old gangsters that were the real threat, ordering the dirty work that the young ones did.
‘Go in and turn around,’ CO Evesham said, and Noah obeyed as the CO unlocked the cell, then uncuffed him. Noah dumped his mattress and sheets on the top bunk, and CO Evesham locked the door and walked away.
‘I’m Noah Alderman,’ he said, and the old man stood up, extending a withered hand.
‘Mike Smith, but they call me Peach because I’m wrinkly.’ Peach leaned a knobby elbow on the bed frame.
‘Hi, Peach.’ Noah unrolled the mattress, glancing around. The cell was six by twelve, and the walls were grimy white cinder block. A long skinny window was set lengthwise at the end, and underneath was Peach’s shelf, which held toiletries, paperback books, and oddly, a magazine collage of Tony Bennett.
‘You look like Dr Kildare, from the TV. You old enough to know Dr Kildare? Good-looking guy. A doctor. Dr Kildare.’
‘Right, Dr Kildare.’ Noah sensed Peach was the chatty sort. He set his toilet kit on a narrow metal shelf next to an open toilet and a urinal.
‘You got in late. Normally they don’t do intake this late. They tell you your job assignment?’
‘No.’ Noah unfolded his single sheet and tucked it around the thin mattress.