“I took another job and used the money to hire a private investigator so I could go to the police. Three days after I hired the investigator, he disappeared. I went to the police when I found out. I told them that I believed Kate and Owen were responsible. I begged the detective not to mention me and to look into Kate’s relationship with Elizabeth. The detective came to my work a week later to inform me that Owen was living in another state, and Kate hadn’t even known she was being investigated, nor had they found any proof that I had even hired the investigator. Kate stopped bringing Elizabeth after.”

Her lawyer stopped writing. “What did you do then?”

“I tried to hire another investigator to find Kate and Elizabeth. The next day, my foster mother was found dead at the bottom of her basement steps, and the investigator’s daughter died in a car wreck the next day. Before you ask, yes, I went back to the police. Both deaths were ruled to be accidents.” The responsibility she felt for those three deaths would haunt her for the rest of her life.

“But you don’t think they were?”

Alanna was at last seeing wariness enter her lawyer’s eyes.

Pushing the anguish aside, she answered Mrs. Bates’s question, “No, I think Owen was responsible for both. Neither Mrs. Fields’s husband, nor Sam, believed her death was an accident, either.

“I moved away when they tried to talk to me. I already had three deaths on my conscience; I wasn’t going to get them killed by telling them who I believed was responsible. I was beginning to think Kate was out of my life permanently, that I had moved far enough away it wouldn’t be worth her time to contact me again.”

“But she did.”

Alanna nodded. “Two years later, and she brought Elizabeth with her. This time, I tried to question Elizabeth, but she was even more secretive. I realized, to keep Elizabeth in my life, I was going to have keep my mouth shut and just be there when she asked me for help. The day she turned eighteen was when she asked me to help her get away from Kate. We left that afternoon and moved to another state after she promised me she would have no contact with Kate, and if she found us, she would tell me immediately.

“Elizabeth lived with me until she graduated from college and Arin hired her. She even moved out of our apartment when she found a place with roommates. I was surprised when she moved out. We got along well, and I was busy most of the time with work, but I could understand her wanting to go out on her own.”

Mrs. Bates looked up from writing her notes to frown. “You don’t think so now?”