Chapter 21 - the photograph taken yesterday
For three hours everyone suspected Grace.
That was exactly what Helena wanted.
Grace had known Lucy’s routine.
Grace had worked inside the Whitmore home.
Grace had been part of Halcyon.
Grace had hidden Emily for six years.
Grace had lied repeatedly.
Daniel hated how reasonable the suspicion felt.
Then Lucy solved it.
She looked at the photograph and said, “That was when the nurse gave me water.”
Daniel turned.
“What nurse?”
“At the safe house.”
Caroline crouched beside her.
“What did she look like?”
Lucy described a woman with dark glasses and a blue medical jacket.
Marcus pulled security photographs.
Lucy pointed immediately.
“That one.”
Dr. Mills.
The image had been taken from a button camera attached to her medical bag.
Grace closed her eyes.
Daniel felt ashamed.
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” Grace said.
She did not sound angry.
That made it worse.
Federal agents found Dr. Mills at a bus terminal outside Providence.
She was carrying cash.
Three passports.
And a ticket to Montreal.
She asked for an attorney.
Then she learned Helena had already closed the account that was supposed to finance her escape.
After that, she started talking.
Dr. Mills had worked for Halcyon for seventeen years.
At first she falsified medical records for abused women who needed new identities.
Then came children.
Then genetic samples.
Then staged illnesses.
Then false deaths.
She told herself every year would be her last.
Helena made sure it never was.
“You falsified Lucy and Noah’s DNA test,” Daniel said.
Mills looked down.
“Yes.”
“You used Emily’s stored sample.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Helena wanted you emotionally attached to Noah.”
Daniel stared.
“Why?”
“So you would keep both children together.”
“Making them easier to locate.”
“Yes.”
His stomach turned.
Even his love had been used as a logistical tool.
Mills gave Marcus the Harbor House access code.
Then she gave him something more valuable.
A list of judges Helena used when she needed children removed legally.
One name stood above the others.
Judge Hollis Merrick.
Sarah Keene recognized him.
“He signed the original emergency order involving Lucy.”
Daniel remembered.
The order that almost allowed child services to remove his daughter after the baseball-bat photographs appeared.
Mills nodded.
“He has been with Helena for twenty-two years.”
As if summoned by the name, Sarah’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then slowly sat down.
“What?”
Sarah looked at Daniel.
“Emergency custody orders have been issued for Noah and Emily.”
Amelia stood.
“On what grounds?”
“Alleged trafficking.”
Daniel laughed in disbelief.
Sarah did not.
“The petition claims you, Caroline, Amelia, and Grace abducted two minors whose identities cannot be legally established.”
“Who signed it?”
Sarah already knew.
“Hollis Merrick.”
Daniel stared at the red ledger lying in its evidence case.
Helena was still doing exactly what Vanessa had warned him about.
She did not steal children from protected homes.
She made the system take them first.
Daniel stood.
“Then this time we don’t run.”
Amelia looked at him.
“What do we do?”
May you like
Daniel reached for his jacket.
“We go back to court.”
