Chapter 11 - UNDER THE GRAVEThe cemetery was hidden behind the original estate.
Rain poured.
The headstones looked like crooked teeth under the lightning.
Edward led us to a mausoleum belonging to the Whitmore family.
He opened a hidden panel.
A staircase descended.
Lily stayed close to me.
The deeper we went, the colder it became.
Then we heard crying.
Alexander ran.
We found Nora inside a small room.
She was frightened but unharmed.
Amelia rushed to her.
“Mommy.”
That one word broke something in Alexander.
He knelt before the child.
“Nora?”
She looked at him.
“Daddy?”
Alexander covered his mouth.
For three years, he had mourned a child he never knew.
Now she was standing in front of him.
Then Nora whispered:
“Daddy, that bad man said you weren't real.”
Alexander hugged her.
But Amelia suddenly looked toward Edward.
“He knew this place existed.”
Edward nodded.
“Victor built it.”
“Why?”
“To hide people.”
There were other rooms.
Empty beds.
Files.
Photographs.
Children.
Adults.
People who had disappeared.
The cemetery was not a graveyard.
It was a prison.
I found a ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
One name was repeated.
Cynthia Whitmore.
Another:
Vanessa Whitmore.
But the final page contained something unexpected.
Lily Bennett.
My blood froze.
“What?”
I showed Alexander.
My daughter's name was listed with a date from four years earlier.
Before Lily had ever met the Whitmores.
How could that be?
Then Edward read the note beneath her name.
OBSERVED BY AMELIA.
I turned toward Amelia.
“What does this mean?”
Amelia looked at Lily.
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“I knew your daughter before you did.”
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
She took a breath.
“When I escaped the first time, I stayed in a shelter.”
“There was a little girl there.”
“Lily?”
Amelia nodded.
“She was four.”
My daughter looked confused.
“I don't remember.”
“That’s because you were very young.”
Amelia explained that she had seen Lily at the shelter while hiding from Victor's people.
She suspected Lily's mother had unknowingly become part of the network.
Not because I worked for Whitmore.
Because my hotel's security system had once been used by Victor.
Someone had been studying patterns of movement.
And my daughter had accidentally appeared in the surveillance archive.
Lily had seen things from cameras.
Things she couldn't consciously remember.
The pillow.
The woman.
The hospital corridor.
The blue coat.
She had been observing the conspiracy for years without understanding it.
Then footsteps echoed above us.
Victor had found the cemetery.
Edward locked the door.
“We're running out of time.”
Amelia looked at Alexander.
“There is one final file.”
“Where?”
“At the hotel.”
“What file?”
“The one that proves who Victor really is.”
Alexander frowned.
“Your evidence is here.”
“No.”
Amelia shook her head.
“The original identity records.”
Victor had not been born Victor Whitmore.
May you like
Someone else had died.
And Victor had stolen his identity.
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