Chapter 13 - The Baby Nobody Reported
I went to Lily's room after dinner.
She was sitting on the bed with a book open across her knees.
I knocked on the doorframe.
"Can I come in?"
She smiled.
"You're already here."
"Fair point."
I sat beside her.
For several minutes, we read together.
Then I asked, "Do you remember when you said you heard a sound near the cellar?"
Lily's body stiffened.
I immediately softened my voice.
"You don't have to talk about it now."
She stared at the page.
"I remember."
I waited.
She closed the book.
"It was crying."
"The lady?"
She shook her head.
"A baby."
My throat tightened.
"You heard a baby?"
She nodded.
"I thought somebody brought a baby to our house. But Vanessa said I was making things up."
I kept my expression calm.
"Did you ever see the baby?"
"No."
"Did you hear it more than once?"
"Maybe two times."
She looked at me anxiously.
"Am I supposed to remember exactly?"
"No, sweetheart. It's okay not to remember."
She exhaled.
I kissed her forehead.
"Thank you for telling me."
I didn't ask anything else.
I informed Mercer, and the professionals handling the case determined how to follow up without putting Lily through unnecessary questioning.
By the next afternoon, investigators had recovered additional evidence from the hidden room.
A small baby blanket.
Medical packaging.
A partially destroyed document from a private clinic.
And traces suggesting the room had been occupied by more than one person over time.
None of it established exactly what had happened.
But it gave investigators new leads.
The clinic named on the damaged document was located outside Baltimore.
Its owner was a physician named Dr. Paul Renner.
Mercer explained that Renner was already under scrutiny for irregular patient records and suspicious payments.
I recognized the surname.
Renner.
It appeared in a financial spreadsheet from the northern-border investigation.
A consulting payment.
Then another.
Then several transfers under different descriptions.
"Was he providing medical care to people being held?" I asked.
"That's one possibility we're investigating."
"Is he cooperating?"
"Not yet."
That evening, news broke that federal agents had executed search warrants at several businesses associated with Northline.
The reports did not mention my family.
They did not mention Elena.
They did not mention the hidden room.
But Grant recognized the significance.
At eight forty-seven, he called Sarah's office.
He wanted to discuss a settlement.
Not custody.
Not Lily's injuries.
A financial settlement.
Sarah forwarded the proposal.
He offered to withdraw his emergency custody claims if I agreed to transfer fifteen million dollars into an account under his control and refrain from making public statements about our marriage.
I read the document twice.
Then I called Sarah.
"Is he serious?"
"His attorney presented it as a comprehensive resolution."
"He's offering not to pursue custody in exchange for money."
"That's how the proposal reads. We won't accept it."
I felt sick.
Lily wasn't a bargaining chip.
Yet Grant was treating her as one.
"Preserve everything," I said.
"Already done."
"Send it to the appropriate investigators."
"With your authorization and subject to the necessary procedures, yes."
I ended the call.
Then I sat alone in the kitchen.
I thought about the man I had married.
The night he proposed.
We had been standing on a dock in Annapolis.
It was raining lightly.
Grant had bought a modest ring because he believed I worked on a government salary.
He apologized for not being able to afford more.
I told him the price didn't matter.
He laughed and promised that someday he would give me the kind of life I deserved.
Back then, I had interpreted that as love.
Now I wondered whether he'd spent our marriage believing love was something measured in assets.
I was still sitting there when another message arrived.
This time, it came from an unfamiliar number through a channel that had been screened by my security team.
Rebecca, I know where Elena is.
I did not respond.
A second message followed.
Your husband knows too.
Then a photograph appeared.
A woman in a hospital bed.
Pale.
Exhausted.
Holding a baby wrapped in a white blanket.
The woman's face was partly obscured.
But the eyes were unmistakable.
Elena.
Alive.
The image carried no trustworthy location data.
Then came the final message.
If you want them both alive, stop asking questions about Margaret.
I forwarded everything.
Within minutes, Mercer called.
"Do not engage."
"I wasn't going to."
"We're tracing the communication."
"Daniel, the baby—"
"I saw."
My voice trembled.
"She has a child."
"Apparently."
I stared at the photograph.
For months, Elena's family had been mourning a disappearance.
A baby may have been born in captivity.
And the people responsible were still trying to control the investigation.
I turned toward the living room.
Lily was asleep on the sofa beneath a blanket.
Her rabbit tucked under one arm.
I looked at my daughter.
Then at the photograph of Elena and her child.
Two mothers.
Two children.
One criminal network.
I knew exactly what the message was intended to do.
It wanted me frightened enough to retreat.
But it also told me something its sender hadn't intended.
Elena was valuable to them alive.
She knew something they feared.
May you like
Something beyond my father's death.
And if we could find out what she knew, we might finally understand why my family had been targeted.
