Chapter 7 - REBECCA
David almost broke the plan.
Almost demanded the address.
Almost crossed the library and forced Eleanor to tell him everything.
Instead, he sat still.
“Where?”
Eleanor studied him.
“You look like her when you’re angry.”
“Where is she?”
“She stopped being Rebecca years ago.”
“Where?”
“Give me Halcyon.”
David stared.
“What?”
“Sign control back to me. Permanently.”
“In exchange for my mother?”
“In exchange for information.”
“You said you raised me.”
“I did.”
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
David leaned back.
“What are you afraid I’ll find?”
Eleanor’s mouth tightened.
That was enough.
He stood.
“This conversation is over.”
She called after him.
“You’re going to destroy your own family.”
David turned.
“My family is waiting in a car two miles away.”
He left.
In the car, Emily listened to the recording again.
“She said Rebecca is alive.”
“If she’s telling the truth.”
“You think she isn’t?”
“I think Eleanor tells the truth when the truth hurts more than a lie.”
Rachel Mercer sat in the front seat.
She had spent twelve years prosecuting financial crimes before joining a federal organized-crime task force.
“This is bigger than inheritance fraud,” she said.
David looked at her.
“What do you need?”
“Proof Halcyon transported people across state lines under false records. Proof of financial crimes. Proof of coerced medical procedures.”
“We have some.”
“You have suspicious documents. I need witnesses.”
Emily said, “Caroline.”
“Secondhand.”
“Vance.”
David almost laughed.
“He won’t talk.”
“Everyone talks when the alternative becomes worse.”
Rachel was right.
They made the alternative worse.
Marcus found three fraudulent billing entities connected to Vance.
Rachel quietly passed the information to investigators.
Tax warrants followed.
Then an insurance fraud inquiry.
Vance’s clinic accounts were frozen.
Two days later, he called David.
“I need to see you.”
“Why?”
“Not on the phone.”
They met in a church parking lot after midnight.
Vance arrived alone.
He looked twenty years older.
“You did this.”
“You’ll have to be specific.”
“My accounts.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Stop.”
David said nothing.
Vance looked around.
“Eleanor will kill me.”
David stepped closer.
“What did you do to Emily four years ago?”
Vance closed his eyes.
“Tell me.”
“She was pregnant.”
“We know.”
“She began bleeding.”
“Did she miscarry?”
“No.”
The word echoed.
David’s face changed.
Vance rushed forward verbally.
“It wasn’t viable long-term.”
“You don’t know that.”
“There were complications.”
“Was my child alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then what did you do?”
Vance looked down.
“We sedated Emily.”
“Why?”
“Eleanor ordered it.”
David grabbed his coat.
“What happened to the baby?”
“David…”
“What happened?”
“It was transferred.”
“Where?”
“Halcyon.”
“Then?”
“I don’t know.”
David shoved him against the car.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I don’t know!”
Vance’s voice broke.
“I handled the maternal procedure. I did not handle placement.”
“Placement.”
David repeated the word.
“Yes.”
“You sold my child.”
“No.”
“You transferred my living child into a system that placed babies with other families.”
Vance began shaking.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“What was supposed to happen?”
“Eleanor said the pregnancy threatened the trust.”
David released him.
“What?”
Vance swallowed.
“Thomas changed Halcyon’s succession rules years earlier. The controlling beneficiary’s first biological child triggered a review of every legacy placement.”
David stared.
“What legacy placements?”
Vance’s eyes filled with terror.
“You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
Vance whispered:
“Your family did not just adopt children.”
A car turned onto the road.
Vance looked over.
Panic exploded across his face.
“No.”
The headlights accelerated toward them.
David grabbed Vance and pulled him aside.
Gunshots cracked.
A bullet shattered the rear window.
David dragged Vance behind the car.
The vehicle sped away.
Rachel’s agents, waiting nearby, pursued it.
Vance lay against the pavement.
Blood spread beneath his shoulder.
David pressed his hand to the wound.
“Stay awake.”
Vance stared at him.
“Rebecca.”
“What about her?”
“She knows where the children went.”
“Where is she?”
Vance gasped.
“Saint Agnes.”
“What is Saint Agnes?”
But Vance lost consciousness.
Rachel traced Saint Agnes by morning.
It was not a church.
It was a psychiatric institution in western Pennsylvania.
One patient had lived there for thirty-five years under a court-sealed identity.
Her current name:
Ruth Bell.
May you like
Her original admission name:
Rebecca Hale.
