Chapter 3 - The Buried Address
The rest of the day passed in a suffocating, unnatural haze.
Daniel left for his client meeting twenty minutes later, kissing the top of my head with a lingering, overly tender embrace that made my skin crawl. I spent the afternoon comforting Lily, rocking her in the armchair until she finally exhausted herself into a deep, restless sleep in her bedroom.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long, bruised shadows across the suburban lawn, my mind raced through a labyrinth of terrifying possibilities.
I kept replaying the scene in the kitchen.
Lily didn't just react to a loud noise; she reacted to the precise, mechanical sound of Daniel’s belt unbuckling. She had looked at him not as a safe, loving adoptive father, but as a warden she had encountered before.
Before.
Before us, Lily had spent four months in an emergency foster home in the suburbs of Raleigh before being transferred to Charlotte.
When Lily finally drifted off to sleep, her breathing heavy and uneven, I crept out of her bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs into the quiet study.
The adoption binder—a thick, blue cardboard folder containing medical records, caseworker logs, and placement histories—sat on the bottom shelf of our mahogany bookcase.
My hands were shaking as I pulled the binder out and carried it over to the desk, flipping open the metal rings. I skipped past the financial disclosures, the psychological evaluations, and the home-study approvals, turning directly to the emergency temporary placement records.
My fingers traced down the typed pages until I found the address of the intake facility where Lily had stayed immediately prior to coming to us.
Emergency Intake Facility: 412 Oakridge Lane, Pineville, NC.
I stared at the street name.
Pineville was just thirty minutes south of Charlotte. But it wasn't the location that made my breath catch in my throat—it was the name of the property owner listed on the county municipal tax lien attached to the back of the intake record.
Property Owner of Record: Marcus Moretti.
Marcus Moretti.
Daniel’s older brother.
The brother Daniel hadn't spoken to in five years—or so he had always claimed. Whenever I had asked about Marcus during our early years of marriage, Daniel’s face would darken, and he would dismiss the subject with a wave of his hand. “Marcus chose a dark path, Clara. We live in completely different worlds. He’s out of my life for good.”
I sat frozen at the desk, the paper trembling in my fingers.
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Daniel had told me he had no connection to any foster facilities in the region. He had sworn to the adoption agency that he had no extended family members involved in child welfare services.
Yet, the emergency intake home where Lily had spent four months—the place where she had learned to cower, to whisper, and to fear the click of a belt—was owned by my husband’s estranged brother.
