“What is your name?” I asked.
“Anna Hale.”
Bianca’s last name.
My chest tightened.
“Is that the name you were given at birth?”
“I don’t know.”
Charles moved beside me.
“Her biological records were altered. Federal investigators located her six days ago at a private residential school in Connecticut.”
Anna looked toward the doorway where Adrian had disappeared.
“He called it a school.”
“What was it?”
“A locked clinic.”
The room seemed to become colder.
I stepped toward her slowly.
“May I come closer?”
She nodded.
I stopped several feet away.
I wanted to touch her face.
I wanted to hold her.
I wanted to apologize for every birthday, every illness, and every lonely night I had not known she was alive.
But she did not know me.
To her, I was a stranger in a silver gown surrounded by cameras.
So I kept my hands at my sides.
“Did you know who I was?” I asked.