Chapter 27 The paper Trail
The search for Oliver Marchetti begins in the basement.
Not the dramatic beginning I would have chosen, but Eleanor insists that every investigation starts with paperwork. So here we are, surrounded by boxes of William Sterling's personal files—the ones the FBI didn't take, the ones Margaret hasn't been able to bring herself to throw away. They're stacked against the concrete walls like a fortress of secrets, musty and yellowing and full of ghosts.
"This is going to take forever," I say, opening a box labeled 2004-2006.
"Only if you keep complaining instead of reading." Eleanor is already cross-legged on the floor, a file in her lap, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She started wearing them last month and claims they make her look like a real journalist. She's not wrong.
The basement is cool and dim, the only light coming from a single bulb overhead and the glow of our phones. It smells like old paper and dust and the faint chlorine of the pool equipment humming in the corner. Somewhere above us, Sophie and Sam are watching cartoons, their laughter drifting through the floorboards like music from another world.
We've been searching for two hours. We've found tax returns and business contracts and correspondence with lawyers who are probably in prison themselves now. But nothing about Helen Marchetti. Nothing about a baby born two years before me.
"He said he paid her family to keep quiet," I say, closing another empty file. "If he was careful enough to erase her from the records, we might not find anything."
"He wasn't as careful as he thought." Eleanor holds up a folder. "Look at this."
It's a medical bill. Dated twenty years ago. The patient name is redacted, but the address is for a private clinic in Vermont—one of those places where wealthy people go to have procedures they don't want anyone to know about. The billing code is for obstetric care.
"That could be anyone," I say.
"It could be. Or it could be Helen Marchetti." Eleanor pulls out her phone and starts typing. "The clinic closed six years ago, but the building was bought by a new practice. If they kept the old records..."
"How do you even know that?"
"Diana taught me. Public records searches. Property transfers. You'd be amazed what you can find if you know where to look."
I watch my sister work, her fingers flying across her phone screen, her eyes sharp and focused. She's in her element—the hunt, the puzzle, the slow unraveling of secrets. It's the same intensity she brought to investigating William's financial crimes, but softer now. Less about revenge. More about truth.
"You really think we can find him?" I ask.
Eleanor looks up from her phone. "I think William spent his whole life trying to make people disappear. But we're proof that it doesn't work. You're here. I'm here. Caroline is here. If Oliver is out there..." She pauses. "He's our brother. That means he's a survivor too."
\---
The next lead takes us out of the basement.
Diana Kerr has a contact at the Vermont clinic—a nurse who worked there in the early 2000s. She's retired now, living in a small town about an hour from Oakhaven, and she agrees to meet us at a coffee shop called The Rustic Cup.
Her name is Patricia Howard, and she's in her seventies, with silver hair and kind eyes and the kind of steady presence that makes you want to tell her your secrets. She orders chamomile tea and settles into the booth across from us like she's been waiting for this conversation for twenty years.
"I remember Helen," she says. "Pretty girl. Very young. Scared out of her mind."
Eleanor has her notebook out. "What can you tell us about her?"
"Not much. I only saw her a few times. She came to the clinic about six months pregnant, and she was alone. That was unusual for our patients—most of them had husbands or boyfriends or at least a mother with them. Helen had no one." Patricia stirs her tea. "I asked her once if she had family we could call. She said her family was the reason she was there."
"What happened to the baby?"
"She gave birth at the clinic. A healthy boy. She named him Oliver, after her grandfather. And then..." Patricia hesitates. "She died. Complications from the delivery. It was very fast. There was nothing anyone could do."
The coffee shop feels very quiet. Eleanor's pen has stopped moving.
"What happened to Oliver?" I ask.
"He was adopted. A private arrangement, handled by a lawyer. I don't know the family's name—that was all kept confidential. But I remember the lawyer. Gerald Webb. He was the one who handled all of Mr. Sterling's... delicate matters."
Another name. Another thread to pull.
Eleanor writes it down: Gerald Webb.
\---
Gerald Webb is dead.
We find this out after three days of searching. He died of a heart attack six years ago, and his practice was absorbed by a larger firm that has no idea where his old files ended up. It's a dead end—the kind that makes Eleanor curse under her breath and slam her laptop shut.
"I hate dead ends," she says.
"Maybe it's a sign. Maybe we're not supposed to find him."
"Or maybe we're just not looking in the right places." She opens her laptop again, her jaw set. "William said Oliver was adopted. That means there's a paper trail somewhere—legal filings, court records. The adoption might have been private, but it wasn't illegal. There has to be something."
I leave her to her research and go upstairs to clear my head.
The house is quiet—Margaret took the twins to the park, and Caroline is teaching a piano lesson in the pool house. Caleb is in the kitchen, making a sandwich. He looks up when I walk in.
"You look exhausted," he says.
"We hit a dead end. The lawyer who handled the adoption is dead, and his files are missing."
"Sounds frustrating."
"It is." I sit down at the island, the same spot where this all began. The peanut butter jar is still on the counter. It's become a permanent fixture, a monument to the night everything changed.
Caleb finishes his sandwich and slides half of it across the island to me. "You know, you don't have to find him."
"I know."
"But you want to."
"I want to know if he's okay. If he's alive. If he has a family." I pick at the crust of the sandwich. "William erased so many of us. Caroline. Eleanor. Me. Oliver was the first. The one he hid before any of us were born. I feel like... if we can find him, we prove that none of us can be erased. Not really."
Caleb is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Can I help?"
"You want to help?"
"He's my brother too. I've got three sisters and one brother I know about. If there's another one out there..." He shrugs. "The more, the merrier, right?"
I think about what Sophie would say. She'd probably demand we find Oliver immediately so she can add him to her stick figure drawings. She's been very clear that there's always room for more family.
"Yeah," I say. "The more, the merrier."
\---
That night, Eleanor bursts into my room with her laptop, her eyes bright.
"I found something."
I sit up in bed. "What?"
"Gerald Webb's old files weren't destroyed. They were transferred to a storage facility when his practice was absorbed. It took me six hours of phone calls, but I finally got ahold of the facility manager. He says there's a box labeled STERLING in their inventory."
My heart pounds. "What's in it?"
"I don't know yet. He can't give us access without a court order, since some of the files are technically client-confidential." She grins. "But I know someone who can get a court order."
"Diana."
"Diana."
I throw off my covers. "How long will it take?"
"Days. Maybe a week. But Maya..." She sits on the edge of my bed, her expression softening. "We're close. I can feel it. We're going to find him."
I think about the faceless boy in my sketchbook. The brother I've never met. The last piece of William Sterling's legacy, waiting to be found.
"I believe you," I say.
Outside, the pool lights shift from blue to purple to green. The world continues. But somewhere out there, Oliver Marchetti is living his life, unaware that two sisters are searching for him.
And soon, he'll know.