CHAPTER 8 The Man in the Morgue
The room fell silent.
I frowned.
"What do you mean... his fingerprints don't match?"
Rebecca didn't answer immediately.
She simply stared at her phone as if hoping the words would somehow change.
Detective Mason took the phone from her.
Listened for nearly thirty seconds.
Then his expression darkened.
"When was the body recovered?"
"This morning. About six miles downstream from the bridge."
"And you're certain?"
"The face matches Walter Carter."
Mason glanced at me.
"The fingerprints don't."
A cold knot formed in my stomach.
"How is that even possible?"
Rebecca finally spoke.
"There are only three explanations."
She counted them on her fingers.
"One."
"The body isn't Walter."
"Two."
"The fingerprints in our database are wrong."
She paused.
"Or three..."
She looked directly into my eyes.
"The man you've known as Walter Carter... was never Walter Carter."
The Morgue
Two hours later, we stood inside the Franklin County Medical Examiner's Office.
The metallic smell of disinfectant filled the air.
Dr. Alan Pierce, the chief medical examiner, pulled back the white sheet.
The face was unmistakable.
Walter.
His gray hair.
The scar beneath his chin.
The crooked nose Elmer once told me had been broken during a bar fight decades ago.
Even Elmer whispered,
"That's my father."
Dr. Pierce folded his arms.
"We thought so too."
He handed Rebecca two fingerprint cards.
"Compare them."
The first card belonged to Walter Carter.
Taken when he'd applied for a concealed carry permit twelve years earlier.
The second had been taken from the corpse only an hour ago.
They were completely different.
Not just one or two ridges.
Every pattern.
Every loop.
Every whorl.
Impossible.
Rebecca looked up.
"DNA."
"We've already started."
"When?"
"Results in about twenty-four hours."
Mason stared at the body.
"If this isn't Walter..."
"Then who have we been chasing?"
A Strange Scar
As Dr. Pierce prepared to cover the body again, Louisa tugged gently on my sleeve.
"Mommy..."
"You shouldn't look, sweetheart."
She wasn't looking at the face.
She was pointing toward the man's neck.
"There."
I followed her finger.
Just behind his left ear...
was a thin, pale scar.
Rebecca noticed it too.
"What caused that?"
Dr. Pierce leaned closer.
"Old surgical incision."
"What kind of surgery?"
He frowned.
"Not sure."
"It almost looks..."
He stopped.
"Looks like what?"
"...a skin graft."
Rebecca immediately requested additional photographs.
The scar circled halfway around the back of the neck.
Almost as though...
someone had removed part of the man's face years earlier.
The DNA Report
The next morning, the laboratory called.
Rebecca placed the results on the conference table without saying a word.
Elmer picked them up first.
Then slowly sat back down.
His face had gone pale.
"It isn't him."
Rebecca nodded.
"The deceased is not biologically related to you."
My mouth went dry.
"So..."
"So Walter Carter is still alive."
Mason rubbed both hands over his face.
"The man in the river..."
Rebecca finished the sentence.
"...was another victim."
A Name No One Expected
The forensic team searched the dead man's clothing one final time.
Hidden beneath the inner lining of his jacket...
they discovered a tiny plastic capsule.
Inside was a tightly folded piece of paper.
A single name.
Samuel Brooks.
Rebecca froze.
"Brooks..."
She opened another case file.
The missing little girl from Toledo.
Amelia Brooks.
Her father.
Samuel Brooks.
He had disappeared three years earlier while searching for his daughter.
Everyone had assumed he was dead.
Now...
his face had somehow become Walter Carter's.
My stomach churned.
"What are you saying?"
Dr. Pierce answered quietly.
"Extensive reconstructive surgery."
Rebecca finished the thought.
"They made another man look like Walter."
"So the real Walter could disappear."
Heather's Apartment
Meanwhile, another FBI team executed a search warrant at Heather's apartment.
The place was almost empty.
No clothes.
No electronics.
No family photographs.
Only a coffee mug still sitting in the sink.
She had fled in a hurry.
But she had left one thing behind.
A locked wooden box beneath the bed.
Inside...
hundreds of photographs.
Children.
Families.
Birthday parties.
School pictures.
Every photo had dates written on the back.
Some children appeared in only one picture.
Others appeared repeatedly...
their hairstyles changing...
their names changing...
even their parents changing.
One little boy appeared six different times.
Each time...
he belonged to a different family.
Rebecca stared at the photographs in horror.
"They weren't just selling children."
"They were rewriting lives."
Louisa Remembers
That evening, Louisa sat quietly coloring in the FBI safe house.
Without warning, she looked up.
"Mommy?"
"Yes?"
"I know where Grandpa took the crying kids."
Every adult in the room froze.
Rebecca slowly sat beside her.
"What do you remember, sweetheart?"
Louisa drew a square on the paper.
"A house."
"Can you draw it?"
She nodded.
Very carefully...
she sketched a long building.
No windows.
A large sliding door.
Three tall trees.
Then...
she added something behind the building.
Water.
"A lake?"
Louisa shook her head.
"No."
"A river."
Rebecca leaned closer.
"What else?"
"There was..."
Louisa frowned.
"...a bell."
"A church bell."
The Map
Agents compared Louisa's drawing against dozens of old properties connected to Walter.
Nothing matched.
Then an analyst overlaid the sketch onto abandoned industrial sites near Columbus.
One location fit perfectly.
An abandoned orphanage.
Closed in 1989.
Built beside the Scioto River.
Three enormous oak trees still stood behind it.
And...
across the street...
an old church with a bell tower.
Rebecca looked at Mason.
"We move tonight."
Cliffhanger
Just before the tactical teams left, Rebecca received another call.
She answered.
Listened.
Then switched the phone to speaker.
A distorted male voice filled the room.
"You've been looking in the wrong place."
Rebecca's hand tightened around the phone.
"Who is this?"
A chuckle.
"You've already met me."
Silence.
Then the voice continued.
"Walter says hello."
Every person in the room froze.
Rebecca asked quietly,
"Where is he?"
The man laughed again.
"Closer than you think."
The line disconnected.
At that exact moment...
One of the agents monitoring the security cameras shouted,
"Agent Sloan!"
Everyone turned toward the monitor.
The live feed from the hallway showed a maintenance worker pushing a cleaning cart toward the safe house entrance.
Nothing unusual...
Except for one detail.
As he passed the camera...
he looked directly into the lens...
smiled...
and slowly removed a latex mask from his face.
May you like
Underneath...
was Walter Carter.
