Chapter 14 - What Lily Remembered
Lily stood barefoot in the hallway.
Rachel stared at her.
“What did you say?”
“I know where Grandpa Thomas is.”
“You’ve never met Grandpa Thomas.”
“I did.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“When?”
“At Grandma’s.”
Claire crouched.
“Lily, think carefully. Was it a dream?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because dreams change.”
Everyone looked at one another.
Lily continued.
“This doesn’t.”
She remembered waking in Marlene’s guest room after eating the purple candy.
She heard voices downstairs.
She walked into the hallway.
A door that was normally locked stood open.
Behind it was a staircase.
Basement.
Ethan frowned.
“Police searched Marlene’s basement.”
“No.”
Lily shook her head.
“Other Grandma house.”
The lake cabin.
Rachel knelt.
“You were at the lake?”
“I think.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily remembered a room with no windows.
An old man sat in a wheelchair.
Marlene called him Tom.
Samuel Vale was there.
They argued about Rachel.
Thomas said:
“You promised you’d leave the child alone.”
Marlene replied:
“She remembers better than Rachel ever did.”
Then Thomas noticed Lily standing in the doorway.
He whispered:
“Run.”
Samuel caught her.
Lily cried while recounting it.
Ethan wanted to stop the interview.
Alvarez urged him to let her continue only if she felt comfortable.
Lily insisted.
Samuel gave her something sweet.
Marlene sat beside her.
She told Lily she had fallen asleep watching television.
Again and again.
“You were watching television.”
“You dreamed the basement.”
“There was no old man.”
“Your mother was never at the lake.”
By morning Lily believed it.
Almost.
But one detail remained.
Thomas pressed something into her hand before Samuel reached her.
“What?” Ethan asked.
Lily frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“Where did you put it?”
“I don’t remember.”
Ethan’s mind raced.
“What were you wearing?”
“Purple unicorn shirt.”
Rachel looked at him.
The same shirt Lily had worn when Marlene attacked her.
Not uncommon.
It was Lily’s favorite.
“Check the shirt.”
Police had collected some clothing as part of the assault evidence.
The purple unicorn T-shirt was returned.
Nothing in the pockets.
No tears.
No object.
Lily touched the unicorn graphic.
“Grandpa touched here.”
Ethan felt along the fabric.
Something clicked faintly inside the hem.
A tiny plastic object had been sewn beneath the embroidered unicorn.
Not sewn by Lily.
Hidden there.
Investigators carefully opened the seam.
A microSD card dropped onto the table.
Thomas had hidden it in Lily’s shirt.
The card contained a video.
Thomas appeared sitting in a wheelchair.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Rachel sees this, I’m sorry.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
Thomas continued.
“I let them tell you I was dead because I believed it would keep you safe.”
Rachel began sobbing.
“I was wrong.”
He explained that after Marlene attacked him, Samuel offered a choice.
Disappear.
Or Rachel would remain in the program indefinitely.
Thomas agreed to vanish.
For years, he was kept medicated and moved between facilities.
Eventually he regained enough independence to cooperate.
Not with Marlene.
Against her.
He secretly collected evidence.
Names.
Accounts.
Locations.
He tried several times to escape.
Each attempt failed.
Then Lily appeared unexpectedly at the lake cabin.
“I realized they had begun again.”
Thomas looked devastated.
“With my granddaughter.”
Ethan clenched his fists.
Thomas leaned toward the camera.
“Lily, if you’re watching, you were brave.”
Lily began crying.
Rachel held her.
Thomas continued.
“The files Marlene fears are not at the lake.”
Alvarez leaned closer.
“They are beneath St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
Everyone froze.
“There is an archived research level closed after Claire left. Samuel kept it operational through private funding.”
Claire whispered:
“No.”
Thomas looked into the camera.
“The entrance is behind Elevator 3.”
317.
Three.
One.
Seven.
Three floors.
One hidden level.
Seven locked rooms.
The token was an access key.
Thomas’s video gave a final warning.
“Do not trust hospital administration.”
Ethan looked at Alvarez.
“Who at the hospital knew?”
Thomas answered from the screen as if he had heard the question.
“Someone inside St. Matthew’s has protected Samuel for nearly thirty years.”
The video ended.
Federal agents obtained a warrant.
Hospital executives protested.
The elevator shaft was inspected.
Behind a maintenance panel in Elevator 3 was an old key interface.
The brass token opened it.
A hidden control appeared.
Minus one.
The elevator descended below the hospital basement.
When the doors opened, investigators found a corridor untouched by ordinary hospital traffic.
Seven rooms.
Room 1 contained medical records.
Room 2 contained drugs.
Room 3 contained recordings.
Room 4 contained photographs.
Room 5 was empty.
Room 6 contained a server bank still running.
Room 7 was locked from the inside.
Agents forced it open.
Inside was Peter Sloan.
Dead.
A gunshot wound.
Beside him lay a note.
HE TALKED TOO MUCH.
Marlene was eliminating people.
But Sloan’s death was not the greatest discovery.
Inside Room 6, investigators recovered a live security feed.
The camera showed a motel room somewhere unknown.
Samuel Vale stood beside a window.
Marlene sat at a table.
And Thomas Whitaker was tied to a chair.
The feed was live.
They were alive.
Then Marlene turned directly toward the hidden camera.
As if she knew Ethan was watching.
May you like
She smiled.
And held up a photograph of Lily.
