Chapter 16 - The Child They Took
I do not remember leaving Lake Haven.
I remember Luka driving.
I remember Ethan beside me.
I remember calling Helen again and again.
No answer.
By the time we reached her house, police had sealed the street.
The front door was broken.
Helen was alive.
Barely.
An ambulance crew treated a wound on her head.
I ran to her.
“Where is Emma?”
Helen grabbed my wrist.
“Woman.”
“What woman?”
“Blonde.”
My stomach turned.
Vanessa.
“She took her?”
Helen nodded weakly.
“She knew the security phrase.”
I looked at Ethan.
His face collapsed.
“What phrase?”
“Blue sparrow.”
Helen whispered.
Ethan went pale.
“That’s mine.”
I stared at him.
“You gave it to Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Then how did she know?”
He closed his eyes.
“I used it for passwords.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I turned away.
Luka’s phone rang.
He answered.
Then handed it to me.
Vanessa.
“Clara.”
Her voice was shaking.
“If you want Emma alive, listen.”
“I swear to God—”
“I didn’t hurt her.”
“Where is she?”
“With me.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas was never in charge.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Neither was Voss.”
“Who is?”
Vanessa began crying.
“I can’t tell you on the phone.”
“You kidnapped my daughter.”
“I saved her.”
“From what?”
“From the person who ordered Lake Haven destroyed.”
I looked toward the night sky.
In the distance, an orange glow appeared.
Mara received a call.
“The compound is burning.”
She whispered.
I stared at Ethan.
Evidence.
Records.
Everything.
Gone.
Vanessa continued.
“Meet me at St. Matthew’s.”
The hospital.
Where it began.
“Why there?”
“Because M-17 began there too.”
The call ended.
We drove back to the hospital.
This time I walked through the front entrance wearing borrowed clothes.
No pink gown.
No wheelchair.
No helplessness.
Vanessa waited in an unused maternity wing.
Emma was in her arms.
I ran.
Vanessa handed her to me immediately.
I pressed my face against my daughter’s head.
“You’re okay.”
Emma began crying.
So did I.
Luka closed the door.
Ethan stared at Vanessa.
“Why?”
She looked at him.
“Because I owe Clara the truth.”
“You destroyed our marriage.”
“No.”
Vanessa’s eyes moved toward him.
“You did that yourself.”
Ethan flinched.
She was right.
Then Vanessa handed me a key.
“Basement records room.”
“What’s there?”
“The original M-17 file.”
“I thought it disappeared.”
“Digital copies did.”
“The paper file never left.”
Luka frowned.
“Who kept it?”
Vanessa looked toward the ceiling.
“Hospital founder.”
“Who?”
She swallowed.
“Dr. Eleanor Hale.”
Victor Hale’s mother.
The name meant little until Mara searched it.
Then her face changed.
“Eleanor Hale died twelve years ago.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
“She changed her name.”
“To what?”
Vanessa looked directly at me.
“Helen Price.”
My blood ran cold.
The woman my father had trusted.
The woman who had been guarding Emma.
May you like
Helen was Victor Hale’s mother.
And she had known where Emma was from the beginning.
