Chapter 18

Helen gripped the handset tightly, causing her knuckles to become white. Staring at the portrait of her and Harold over the mantle, she listened to the voice on the phone.

“I’m sorry, but her docket is sealed,” a man said.

“What nonsense! You’re the head of surgery, how can you not have access to her files?”

There were a few seconds of silence before he responded. “The patient is a private patient. She or her guardian may have requested it be kept confidential. The head of the neurosurgical department is the only one who would be able to access her file. In addition, I understand that she’s been moved to a private facility.”

Helen’s nostrils flared as her blood ran hot through her veins. No one around her had the competency to assist her efforts. Now, Kristen has disappeared from the hospital. Was Ethan responsible for that? In any case, from what she learned, the girl had not regained consciousness. Therefore, her whereabouts were of little importance.

She hung up the phone and walked to the side table where the housekeeper placed the mail. She quickly pushed Kristen to the back of her mind and focused her attention on a large brown envelope. Turning it over, she noted that it had no return address, nor any stamps or markings to indicate where it came from. Helen didn’t like mysteries and this looked suspicious.

Using the letter opener, she ripped the flap and shook the envelope. Out fell two photographs. She picked them up with a frown, then pursed her lips tightly.

The first one she stared at was of Harold in front of a hotel. The name on the building was blacked out with a marker. The place looked familiar, but what caught her attention was the woman on her husband’s arm. She could not see the face at all, as the photographer took the photo from Harold’s right side and the woman was on his left arm.

The next photo was of a little boy, about two years old sitting in a high chair. A woman was bent over feeding the child, but her face was not visible. The picture was taken when the woman turned her face away. It seemed to have been taken in a public place.

“What is this?”

Wanting to see if there was a note explaining the photos, she peered inside the envelope. There was nothing more in there. She turned over the photos and there was nothing written on the back either.

Helen didn’t need a note to explain to her what the message was. She was a smart woman and knew that Harold wasn’t always faithful. But that was something she could live with, so long as he kept his affairs secret. This was somehow different. These photos implied that he had a child outside of the marriage.

Even with the evidence, Helen was not quick to jump to conclusions. With a sinister mind of her own, she knew the possibility existed that this was a ploy to extort money. The only way to figure out the truth was to find the source of the photos.

She returned the pictures to the envelope and took it with her when she went to her room. She’d need John to look into this. The hotel in the first photo she knew to be a prominent one in New York.

It was then she remembered Harold’s telephone conversation and his subsequent behavior. He’d been telling the person on the phone that they should have stayed in New York because returning could cause problems. Helen sneered, her face twisting scornfully. “So, this was the reason,” she said to her empty bedroom suite.

Helen was six years younger than Harold was. She’d married him when she was twenty years old and had Andrew when she was twenty-two. Her precious son would have been thirty-six, while Ethan was thirty-two. Helen and Harold hadn’t been a happily married couple for a long time. It had been months since they’d been intimate. Briefly, she wondered if having separate bedrooms had contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.

She knew about his little affairs, but they were never anything serious. How could he create a child with another woman? He was sixty-six years old. His children are grown, how could he be this careless?

A part of Helen was skeptical about the photos, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she believed it to be true. Harold had been acting strangely of late. His secret phone calls and his nervous tension was evidence that something had happened.

Before going to bed, Helen made plans to investigate the situation. What she would do about it eluded her, as she wasn’t sure she was ready for the inevitability of a divorce.