Chapter 3 - The Locked House
We left the hotel through the underground garage beneath a wall of black umbrellas and security jackets. Rain had begun falling hard enough to blur the city lights. Nolan placed Eli in the back of my armored SUV, while Ava and Theo followed in another vehicle.
My mother refused to ride with anyone but me. She sat beside me in silence, her pearls trembling against her throat. For decades, I had thought of Beatrice Ellison as unbreakable. She had survived my father’s death, built the foundation’s first offices, and stood beside me through congressional hearings and hostile newspapers.
Now she looked like an old woman who had been waiting for a door to open.
“Tell me who C-17 was,” I said.
“A patient designation.”
“For my baby?”
She closed her eyes.
“The hospital used numbers for records that were not supposed to be released.”
“Not supposed to be released to whom?”
She did not answer. Her silence confirmed more than any confession could have. I had Nolan take us to the Ellison Foundation guesthouse instead of my home. The guesthouse stood behind iron gates on a wooded property outside the city, with cameras on every corner and a panic room beneath the library.
Ava and Theo arrived ten minutes later, both soaked and furious.
“You cannot keep treating me like a child,” Ava said.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“You brought a strange boy into my wedding and then told everyone he might be my nephew. Do you understand what will happen when the press learns his name?”
“Your reputation is not the emergency.”
Her face tightened.
“It is if the people threatening him are connected to the foundation.”
The words landed sharply.
“What do you know?”
Before Ava could answer, Theo placed a folder on the library table.
“Daniel Vale contacted me three weeks ago.”
I stared at him.
“You knew my son was alive?”
“I didn’t know he was your son. He gave me a different name and asked questions about historical foundation grants, hospital donations, and sealed adoption records.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Theo looked at Ava. She lowered her gaze. The betrayal moved through me slowly, like cold water.
“You both knew.”
“We knew someone believed there was a connection,” Ava said.
“We didn’t know about Eli until tonight.”
“You let him investigate my family without saying a word?”
“I let him investigate the family I was marrying into,” Theo replied.
“There’s a difference.”
The house alarm suddenly screamed. Nolan drew his weapon and moved toward the hallway. Lights flashed red across the library walls. Eli crouched beneath the table, covering his ears.
My mother stood rigidly beside the fireplace.
“All doors are locked,” Nolan called.
“No breach on the perimeter.”
The alarm stopped as abruptly as it had begun. One of the cameras displayed on the security monitor showed a figure standing beyond the iron gate. The rain distorted the image, but I could see a man in a maintenance jacket. He lifted one hand toward the camera, revealing a scar across his thumb.
Eli crawled out from beneath the table.
“That’s him.”
Nolan zoomed the image. The man turned away and disappeared into the trees before the guards reached the gate. Theo opened the folder.
“Daniel left this with me. He said if anything happened, I should give it to Mara Ellison, not the police.”
Inside were copies of old hospital invoices, foundation checks, and a photograph of my father standing beside a young doctor outside St. Catherine’s Hospital. A red circle surrounded a line item on one invoice: MATERNAL TRANSFER—C-17. I recognized the doctor.
Dr. Julian Rusk had delivered my baby. He had died fifteen years ago, celebrated in the newspapers as a pioneer in neonatal medicine. My mother reached across the table and tried to close the folder.
“Stop,” I said.
She froze.
“Did my father know my baby survived?”
Bea’s eyes filled with tears.
“Your father knew everything.”
“And you?” She looked toward the locked doors, then whispered,
“I knew enough to be afraid.”
From somewhere beneath the house came a heavy metallic bang. Eli seized my sleeve.
May you like
“That’s the basement door.”
Nolan turned toward the hidden stairwell. A second bang shook the library floor, followed by the unmistakable scrape of someone trying to open the panic-room entrance from inside.
