Chapter 9 – The Man With The Scar
My hands shook as I stared at the photo.
The drawing in the diaper bag hadn’t been a forgotten relic of the past. It was a current plea. And whoever this scarred man was, he had just been on my property.
I didn’t show Amy. Not yet. She had just gotten her peace back; I couldn’t shatter it on the best day we’d had in a year.
The next morning, while Amy was giving Frederick a bath, I took the photo and drove to a private investigator I had met during the embezzlement trial—a retired cop named Harris.
Harris adjusted his reading glasses, holding the Polaroid up to his desk lamp.
“Recent drop,” Harris grunted. “No weathering on the paper. Who is the guy?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “My wife has no family left. She told me her parents died in a car crash when she was a teenager, and she grew up in the foster system. I’ve never seen this man before.”
“Well, you’re about to see him now,” Harris said, typing furiously into his facial recognition database.
A moment later, a mugshot popped up on the screen. It was the same man, looking harder, older, but the red scar was undeniable.
“Name is Arthur Vance,” Harris read from the file. “Did ten years in federal lockup for armed robbery. Paroled two months ago.”
“Armed robbery?” I felt sick. “Why is my wife connected to a violent felon?”
Harris clicked the mouse, his eyebrows shooting up. “It gets weirder, Connor. Take a look at his listed next of kin.”
I leaned over the desk. Under the ‘Relations’ tab, it listed one name: Daughter – Amy Vance.
My wife wasn’t an orphan. Her father was a convicted felon.
“There’s an address here,” Harris pointed at the screen. “A halfway house across town. You want me to poke around?”
“No,” I said, grabbing the photo. “I’m going to see him myself.”
I drove straight to the halfway house, a rundown brick building in the industrial district. I demanded to see Arthur Vance. The desk clerk told me he was out back in the courtyard.
I pushed through the rusty metal doors. A tall, broad-shouldered man was sitting on a bench, whittling a piece of wood. He had graying hair, but the scar on his cheek was unmistakable.
“Arthur,” I said, my voice hard.
He looked up, setting the knife down. He didn’t look surprised. In fact, he smiled a sad, weary smile.
“Hello, Connor,” he said, his voice a deep gravelly rumble. “I was wondering how long it would take you to find the picture.”
“You stay away from my house,” I warned, stepping closer. “You stay away from my wife and my son. We just got our lives back.”
Arthur sighed, pulling a thick envelope from his jacket. “I don’t want to hurt her, Connor. I want to save her.”
“Save her from what?”
“From the real reason your mother hated her so much,” Arthur said, tossing the envelope onto the bench. “Open it. Because the embezzlement was just the tip of the iceberg.”
Inside the envelope was a birth certificate for Amy. But the mother’s name listed wasn’t a stranger.
It read: Teresa Bradley.
