I looked between them.
“You held her somewhere?”
Malcolm ignored me.
“Mara stole private medical records.”
“She exposed crimes.”
“That's one interpretation.”
“Babies were taken from mothers.”
Malcolm finally looked at me.
“Do you imagine every adoption process in America is tidy?”
I stepped toward him.
“Don't.”
“Grant, I spent forty years cleaning problems created by irresponsible people.”
“Children aren't problems.”
His eyes moved toward the staircase.
“That's precisely the kind of sentimental thinking that makes complicated systems impossible to manage.”
That sentence told me more about Malcolm Voss than twelve years of dinners ever had.
“You knew Owen's records were altered.”
“Yes.”
Natalie whispered, “Dad…”
Malcolm raised one hand.
“I protected him.”
“From whom?”
“From the people who created the system.”
I stared at him.
“You created it.”
A brief smile.
“You think I started this?”
Silence.
Malcolm looked toward Mara.
“Tell him.”
She said nothing.
“Tell me what?”
Malcolm stepped inside despite me blocking him.
Thomas appeared from the study.
“Stop there.”
Malcolm looked amused.
“This isn't a movie.”
“No,” Thomas said. “Which is why I'm recording.”
For the first time, Malcolm seemed careful.
He turned back toward me.
“The transfer network existed before I joined the hospital board.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because powerful people were involved.”
“Names?”
“You wouldn't recognize most.”
“Try me.”
“Judges. Executives. Doctors. Politicians. Families who paid large amounts of money for children nobody wanted to admit had been purchased.”
Natalie stared at him.
“And you protected them?”
“I contained the damage.”
“You profited.”
Malcolm said nothing.
That silence answered.
Then Owen appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Grandpa?”
Malcolm looked up.
His expression softened instantly.
I stepped between them.
“Go back to your room, Owen.”
Malcolm smiled.
“He should hear this eventually.”
“No.”
“Grant, he's part of it.”
“He is five.”
“He is the reason Diane saved the files.”
Natalie froze.
“What?”
Malcolm's smile disappeared.
“My wife wasn't trying to expose the entire network.”
Mara looked confused.
“What was she doing?”
“She was trying to find one child.”
“Who?”
Malcolm looked toward Owen.
“His father.”
I stared at him.
“What the hell does that mean?”
He looked at me.
“Your father wasn't who you think he was.”
My father, Robert Holloway, died when I was fourteen.
Car accident.
He had been a labor attorney.
Quiet.
Stubborn.
The man who taught me how to throw a baseball and change a tire.
“What does he have to do with St. Catherine's?”
“He spent years representing mothers who claimed the hospital had lied about their children.”
I had never known.
Malcolm continued.
“Robert came closer than anyone to exposing us.”
“Us.”
Malcolm realized the word he had used.
Too late.
“He discovered Diane was copying records.”