Chapter 5 - The Basement Children)
Eleanor refused to answer David’s calls.
By midnight she had checked out of the police-arranged hotel room and vanished.
Detective Hall called it voluntary departure.
David called it running.
The photograph of Chloe changed everything.
Hall forwarded it to federal investigators.
The metadata had been wiped.
Background indistinct.
Mark’s face partially visible.
Chloe appeared physically unharmed.
But terrified.
David sent one reply.
If you hurt her, I will find you.
The answer arrived immediately.
I am not the one who hurt her.
Then another.
Your mother did.
David stared.
Maya watched from the hospital bed.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Another message appeared.
ASK WHO CHLOE WAS BEFORE SHE WAS CHLOE.
David looked at Maya.
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Biologically?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
He opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Birth certificates.
Family photographs.
Childhood memories.
But memories could be incomplete.
Documents could be created.
Mark was proof.
David called Hall.
The detective answered on the second ring.
“We received the messages.”
“What the hell is he talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find my mother.”
“We’re trying.”
“Not good enough.”
“David.”
Hall’s voice hardened.
“You need to stop treating this like a private family dispute.”
“My sister is being held by a man using a false identity.”
“And if he is who we suspect, this is bigger than kidnapping.”
David went silent.
“Who do you suspect?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
“Then why call me?”
“Because I need your permission to search an old property.”
“What property?”
Hall sent an address.
David recognized the town.
Connecticut.
The house where his family lived until he was nine.
He had not thought about it in years.
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“The property was never sold.”
David frowned.
“Yes, it was.”
“No.”
“My parents told us it was.”
“County records show it transferred into a private trust.”
“What trust?”
“Mercer Holdings.”
David’s breath caught.
Daniel Mercer.
The name on the false passport bearing David’s photograph.
Hall continued.
“The house has remained vacant for twenty-seven years.”
David felt cold.
“You mentioned a basement.”
Hall knew.
Of course Maya had repeated it to investigators.
“David, did anything happen in that house?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That answer concerns me.”
“It concerns me too.”
The search began at dawn.
David insisted on going.
Hall argued.
David won.
The property stood at the end of a wooded road outside Stamford.
The once-white exterior had turned gray.
Windows were boarded.
Trees had swallowed most of the yard.
David stepped from the vehicle and immediately felt nauseated.
Hall noticed.
“You okay?”
“I’ve been here.”
“You lived here.”
“No.”
David looked toward the house.
“I mean recently.”
Hall frowned.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
It made no sense.
David had not visited since childhood.
Yet the front porch felt familiar in an immediate, physical way.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Except the staircase leading down.
The basement door had fresh scratches around the lock.
Agents opened it.
The smell hit David first.
Bleach.
His knees nearly weakened.
Concrete steps.
Bare bulb.
White walls.
The memory returned violently.
A boy crying.
A little girl beside him.
David holding her hand.
Someone saying:
Daniel, look at me.
David gripped the railing.
Hall steadied him.
“What is it?”
“My name.”
“What?”
“Someone called me Daniel.”
They descended.
The basement looked empty.
Until one agent found a seam in the far wall.
Behind shelving was another door.
Steel.
Recently opened.
Inside was a corridor.
Three small rooms.
Each contained a child-sized bed.
David stopped breathing.
On the wall of the first room were height measurements.
Names beside them.
Daniel.
Claire.
Samuel.
Rebecca.
Michael.
David touched Daniel.
A date was written beside it.
He calculated quickly.
He would have been seven.
Hall photographed everything.
Then David saw the drawings.
Crayon pictures.
A house.
A black car.
A tall man.
A woman with dark hair.
And two children holding hands.
Below one drawing, in a child’s handwriting:
DANIEL AND CLAIRE GO HOME WHEN WE REMEMBER.
David stumbled backward.
“Claire.”
Hall looked at him.
“What?”
“My sister’s middle name.”
“Chloe’s?”
“Yes.”
Chloe Claire Carter.
Hall stared at the wall.
Then an agent called from the final room.
“Detective.”
They entered.
A metal cabinet had been forced open.
Inside were VHS tapes.
Dozens.
Each labeled with dates.
David’s childhood.
One tape bore his name.
DANIEL M. SESSION 43.
Another:
CLAIRE M. SESSION 19.
Hall’s face hardened.
“Mercer.”
David looked at him.
“You know that name.”
Hall hesitated.
Then nodded.
“Twenty-five years ago, there was a private behavioral research program connected to a defense contractor.”
David felt sick.
“Children?”
“Unofficially.”
“What happened?”
“The program was investigated.”
“And?”
“Records disappeared.”
David looked around the hidden basement.
“Apparently not all of them.”
One agent inserted a tape into an old player found inside the cabinet.
Static appeared.
Then a room.
David’s room.
Seven-year-old David sat in a chair.
A man stood behind the camera.
Another man entered.
David’s father.
Richard.
Young.
Terrified.
He crouched before the child.
“Daniel.”
The boy looked up.
Richard took his face gently between both hands.
“You are David now.”
Adult David stopped breathing.
On the tape, the child cried.
Richard continued.
“You have to forget this place.”
“Where’s Claire?”
“She’ll be with you.”
“Promise?”
Richard looked toward someone outside the frame.
Then back at the child.
“I promise.”
The tape flickered.
A woman’s voice spoke.
Eleanor.
“Richard, they’re coming.”
Richard stood.
“What about the others?”
“We can’t take them all.”
The tape ended.
David stared at the blank screen.
May you like
Four words echoed through the basement.
We can’t take them all.
