THE MISSING FENCE POST

I stared at the engraving. To Anna. My Daughter.

Answer one: The object my father and Helen Gable pawned was a gold lapel watch belonging to Anna’s mother. Open two: If Anna’s mother was a nurse who owned an expensive gold watch, why was Anna in the foster system? And who was the watch originally given to?

“Do you know who pawned this?” I asked the shop owner, my voice shaking.

He tapped the receipt. “The name on the ticket is Helen Gable. But the notes say it was brought in by a man. He didn’t have ID, so the woman signed for it.”

My father. He had taken this watch—Anna’s only connection to her real family—and traded it for cash with the help of a corrupt caseworker.

“I want to buy it,” I said, pulling out my credit card.

The man shook his head. “It’s past the redemption date by three decades, lady. Technically, it belongs to the shop. But frankly, it’s been sitting in that safe so long I forgot it was there. Give me fifty bucks for the storage fee and take it.”

I handed him a fifty-dollar bill from my wallet, carefully picking up the watch. The gold was cold against my palm.

When I got back to the car, Sarah was sitting in the driver’s seat, looking back at Thomas, who was starting to wake up.

I climbed into the passenger side and handed her the watch.

Sarah read the inscription and gasped. “My grandmother’s watch? Mom said she was an orphan. She said she never had anything from her real parents.”

“She didn’t, because my father stole it,” I said, disgust washing over me.

A reversal. Margaret hadn’t just been protecting Anna from physical danger. She had been protecting her from being completely erased. My father and Helen Gable were stripping Anna of her identity, piece by piece, for profit.

“We need to find Helen Gable,” Sarah said fiercely, her grip tightening on the steering wheel.

“She retired years ago,” I said, pulling out my phone. “But I know someone who might know where she is. The current director of the county family services. We went to high school together.”

I dialed Mark Davies. He answered on the second ring.

I didn’t explain the whole story, only that I was trying to track down a retired caseworker regarding an old, closed file.

“Helen Gable?” Mark’s voice sounded tense through the speaker. “Lucy, you don’t want to go digging around her.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Helen didn’t just retire,” Mark said quietly. “She was forced out twenty years ago quietly. There were rumors of embezzlement, but the county didn’t want a scandal, so they let her resign with her pension.”

“Where is she now, Mark?”

He sighed. “She lives in the high-rises down by the waterfront. But Lucy... be careful. Helen is a bitter woman, and she has a lot of friends in local politics who helped cover her tracks.”

He gave me the address.

Sarah started the car. “We’re going.”

“What about the kids?” I asked.

“They can watch a movie on my tablet in the lobby,” Sarah said, her voice hard. “I am not letting this go. Not after what they did to my mother.”

We drove to the waterfront, a wealthy district that my father’s meager factory salary could never have afforded. Helen Gable had clearly lived well on the money she stole from vulnerable children.

The high-rise was imposing, all glass and steel. We set the kids up on a plush sofa in the lobby with a tablet and headphones, slipping the concierge a twenty to keep an eye on them.

We took the elevator to the penthouse floor.

I knocked on the heavy oak door of apartment 12B.

A moment later, the door swung open.

Standing there was a woman in her late seventies, wearing a silk robe and holding a crystal glass of wine. Her face was lined with age, but her eyes were cold and calculating.

“Helen Gable?” I asked.

She looked at me, then at Sarah. Her eyes locked onto Sarah’s face, and for a split second, the cold mask slipped.

“You look just like her,” Helen whispered.

“You remember my mother,” Sarah said, stepping forward.

Helen recovered quickly, her expression hardening. “I remember a lot of children. State your business or I’m calling security.”

“My name is Lucy Bennett,” I said. “Arthur Bennett’s daughter. And we know about the money.”

Helen’s hand tightened around her wine glass.

Before she could speak, a voice called out from inside the apartment.

“Helen? Who’s at the door?”

A man stepped up behind her in the entryway. He was tall, dressed in an expensive suit, with silver hair and a patrician nose.