Chapter 9 - Two Children, Thirty-Two Missing Years
I read the report until the numbers lost meaning.
Mara stood in front of me, waiting.
Not as an investigator.
As a daughter.
I wanted to embrace her.
I also understood that I had no right to assume she wanted that.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Her expression tightened.
“For what?”
“For not finding you.”
“You thought I was dead.”
“I should have questioned it.”
“You were twenty.”
“I was your mother.”
“You still are.”
The words were quiet.
They broke me.
I reached for her slowly.
Mara stepped into my arms.
For the first time in thirty-two years, I held my daughter.
She did not cry loudly.
Neither did I.
We simply stood together amid flashing emergency lights while a ruined hospital burned behind us.
Eli remained several feet away.
When Mara released me, she faced him.
“So you’re my brother.”
“Apparently.”
“That sounded enthusiastic.”
“I’m adjusting.”
She studied his leather vest.
“I spent eighteen months investigating a trafficking network and discovered my brother belongs to a motorcycle club.”
“I own a repair shop and pay taxes.”
“Mostly?”
“Enough.”
A faint smile touched her face.
It was the first glimpse of what might one day become an ordinary sibling conversation.
Then her expression grew serious.
“The second report is Celeste’s.”
She opened it.
Adrian Pike was listed as her biological father.
Rosa Alvarez was identified as her biological mother through a match to surviving relatives.
Celeste was not Adrian’s adopted daughter.
She was the child he had fathered through assault.
He had raised her as his own while concealing the truth.
When Celeste regained consciousness, Mara told her.
Celeste stared at the hospital ceiling.
“He knew all along?”
“Yes.”
“And Rosa?”
“Your mother was murdered beneath the chapel.”
Celeste turned her face away.
For years, she had publicly praised Adrian Pike as the man who saved abandoned children.
Now she knew he had killed her mother and used stolen adoption money to build her career.
“Harold knew,” she said.
“Did he?” Mara asked.
“He found the DNA reports six months ago. That is when he began moving assets out of the trust.”
Harold was in custody at the county jail.
Agent Blake had been transferred to a federal detention facility.
Thomas Grady vanished from the hospital before police could question him.
Adrian remained under armed guard.
My mother’s condition worsened.
Doctors said her heart might fail within days.
She asked us to take her home.
Mara objected.
“It is not secure.”
“I don’t want to die beneath fluorescent lights,” Evelyn said.
We returned to the Bennett house with Iron Saints stationed at every entrance.
The blue room had been damaged by gunfire, but we cleaned it.
Eli repaired the broken crib.
Mara rehung the yellow curtains.
I sat beside my mother’s bed while she told us the story she had buried.
Adrian Pike had seduced her when she was nineteen and working as a hospital clerk.
When she became pregnant, he arranged for Thomas Bennett to marry her in exchange for money.
I was raised believing Thomas was my father.
Years later, Adrian recruited Evelyn to prepare adoption records.
He told her the mothers had consented.
By the time she discovered the truth, he had enough evidence to implicate her.
Rosa Alvarez became her friend and helped collect proof.
When I arrived at St. Catherine’s in labor, Adrian decided to punish Evelyn for resisting him.
He planned to sell both my children.
Silas Rourke and Luis Velez helped Evelyn and Rosa rescue them.
Silas took Eli.
Luis took Mara.
Before they could return the babies to me, Adrian killed Rosa and Margaret.
Sheriff Cole closed the investigation.
“Why not bring Eli and Mara back later?” I asked.
“Adrian watched you for years,” my mother replied. “He promised to kill them if I tried.”
“You could have told me.”
“I told myself ignorance kept you safe.”
“No. It kept you from facing me.”
She accepted the words without defending herself.
Eli sat in the rocking chair.
“Why did Silas raise me as his own?”
“He intended to return you when Pike was arrested. When the case disappeared, Silas believed keeping you hidden was the only way to protect you.”
“Did he know Nora was alive?”
“Yes.”
Eli stood.
He walked to the window, his back toward us.
“He let me believe no one wanted me.”
“He loved you.”
“That does not erase the lie.”
“No,” my mother said. “Love does not excuse every lie.”
Her eyes found mine.
The sentence belonged to both of us.
Mara opened the ledger copies.
“Forty-seven files were altered by Evelyn. The complete ledger contains two hundred and eighteen names.”
“Some children may still be alive,” I said.
“Most will be adults now.”
“They deserve the truth.”
Eli turned from the window.
“So do the mothers.”
We decided to use the Ashford Children’s Trust records to locate every family.
Celeste offered full access as part of her cooperation agreement.
But before the investigation could begin, a guard called from downstairs.
A package had been left at the front door.
No one had seen who delivered it.
Inside was a small wooden box.
It contained a photograph of Silas Rourke standing beside Thomas Grady.
They appeared much younger.
On the back, Silas had written:
GRADY KNOWS WHERE THE FIRST LEDGER IS BURIED.
Beneath the photograph lay a freshly severed human finger wearing Harold Pike’s signet ring.
Mara immediately called the county jail.
Harold was missing.
Security footage showed a guard escorting him through a service exit.
The guard was later found unconscious.
A message had been carved into the wooden box.
BRING EVELYN TO THE OLD QUARRY BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
Jax checked the time.
We had three hours.
My mother looked at the finger.
Then at us.
“Grady is not working for Adrian.”
“Who is he working for?” Eli asked.
“No one.”
May you like
Fear filled her eyes.
“Thomas Grady was one of the stolen children.”
