Chapter 12 - The Twelfth Child
The hidden passage led beneath the riverbank and ended in a drainage chamber filled with cold water.
They emerged soaked, coughing, and alive. Behind them, smoke poured from a ventilation grate above the hospital basement.
“The files,” Iris said.
Ruth held the ledger against her chest. “I have it.”
Eli checked the metal case. The microfilm was gone.
“Someone took the reel,” he said.
“When?”
“In the room.”
Ruth thought of the smoke, the dark, and the footsteps. “Nico?”
“Or someone working for him.”
Lenora stood shivering beneath the river bridge. Her face had changed since the gala. The woman who had entered the hospital believing in family power now looked like someone who had discovered her entire life was a forged signature.
“Celia was my husband’s daughter,” she said. “He told me her mother died in childbirth.”
“Celia was seventeen,” Eli said.
“I know.”
“Did you ever meet her?”
“Once. Victor brought her to the house. She was frightened. He said she had caused trouble and needed treatment.”
Ruth felt anger rise. “She was a child.”
“So was Nico.”
“He is an adult now.”
“And he has spent his life trying to prove he belongs to a family that stole his identity.”
The words complicated nothing and everything.
They returned to Iris’s farmhouse. Eli scanned the ledger while Ruth called the district attorney. The call went directly to voicemail.
“He knows,” Eli said.
“Knows what?”
“The hospital fire has started again.”
He showed her a news alert. The fire department had reported a blaze at St. Orison. Morrow House called it an electrical malfunction caused by unauthorized entry.
“They’re destroying the building,” Ruth said.
“They’re destroying the trail.”
Iris placed the ledger on the table. “The original pages are enough.”
“Not if they say I stole them,” Ruth replied.
“Then we release copies.”
“To whom?”
Eli looked at his laptop. “Everywhere.”
“If we publish before the chain of custody is established, they’ll call it fabricated.”
“If we wait, they’ll call it missing.”
Ruth stared at the names. Eleven children. Eleven families. Eleven lives built on altered records.
“We need the testimony of the mothers,” she said.
“Mara will speak.”
“Will she?”
Eli nodded. “She already agreed to come.”
“How soon?”
“She’s on a flight.”
The farmhouse lights went out.
Iris reached for the shotgun leaning beside the door.
“The power line runs aboveground,” she said. “Someone cut it.”
A car door slammed outside.
Eli pulled Ruth behind the kitchen wall. Lenora picked up a fireplace poker.
The back door burst open.
A man in a dark coat entered carrying the missing microfilm reel.
“Put down the ledger,” he said.
Iris fired into the ceiling.
The man ducked. Eli rushed him. They collided against the table, sending papers across the floor.
Ruth grabbed the microfilm and ran toward the greenhouse. The man followed. She slipped on wet stones, fell, and felt his hand close around her coat.
“Where is the twelfth record?” he demanded.
Ruth struck his wrist with the reel.
He cursed and released her.
Eli appeared behind him and drove him into the greenhouse wall.
The man collapsed.
Eli removed his mask. “He works for the city redevelopment office.”
Ruth recognized him. “He was at the gala.”
The man coughed. “You don’t know what you’re carrying.”
“Tell me,” Ruth said.
“The twelfth child wasn’t Nico.”
May you like
Eli froze.
The man smiled through split lips. “It was the one June gave to Ruth Calder.”
