Chapter 9 - The Bridge Silas Could Not Remember
Sheriff Hollis placed Silas in an interrogation room beneath the county courthouse.
The room had no cameras.
Hollis removed Silas’s handcuffs and sat across from him.
For several minutes, neither man spoke.
Finally, Silas asked, “What did you mean in the parking lot?”
Hollis folded his hands.
“You know exactly what I meant.”
“You said Caleb died on the bridge.”
“I said the child died on the bridge.”
Silas stared at him.
“What child?”
Hollis leaned back.
“Twenty-eight years ago, my father found you beside your truck near Miller’s Bridge. You were unconscious. Elias’s blood covered your shirt. In the passenger seat was a baby wrapped in a gray blanket.”
Silas’s head began to ache.
Fragments appeared.
Rain.
A screaming infant.
Headlights reflecting on water.
A man striking him from behind.
“I don’t remember.”
“That was the intention.”
“Whose baby?”
Hollis smiled without warmth.
“The ledger will tell you.”
Silas’s hands tightened.
“You drugged me.”
“My father did.”
“Why?”
“To make you forget where Anna went.”
Silas stood.
Hollis did not move.
“You knew she was alive.”
“I was seventeen.”
“You helped them.”
“I followed my father.”
“You forged the report.”
“Years later.”
“Why?”
Hollis’s jaw tightened.
“Because some systems are too large to escape.”
Silas leaned across the table.
“Where is Elias?”
Hollis looked toward the door.
“Alive, for a time.”
Silas froze.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where was he taken?”
“To the old state hospital.”
The hospital had closed fifteen years earlier after a fire destroyed its east wing.
Silas remembered newspaper reports claiming that the building had been empty.
Hollis continued.
“Elias was injured at the bridge. Your brother gave Anna enough time to escape with the baby. You loaded them into your truck.”
“Then what happened?”
“My father stopped you. You fought him. Another man injected you with something.”
“What happened to Anna?”
“She disappeared.”
“The baby?”
Hollis’s eyes narrowed.
“My father said it died.”
“Did you see the body?”
“No.”
Silas sat again.
Caleb might have been the baby from the bridge, though the dates did not make sense. Caleb was twelve, not twenty-eight.
Unless the baby was someone else.
“Why tell me this now?”
“Because Garrett is dead.”
“So?”
“He was one of the last people who knew how to reach Lantern.”
“Who runs it?”
Hollis looked tired.
“Margaret Hollis.”
“Your mother.”
“Yes.”
“She died in a fire.”
“No. A woman from a nursing home died in her house. The dental records were changed.”
Silas stared at him.
“You’ve protected her all these years.”
“I protected my children.”
“What did she threaten?”
“Not what. Who.”
Hollis stood and moved to the door.
Silas blocked him.
“You’re letting me leave?”
“No.”
“You have no evidence against me.”
“I have a body, a fire, witnesses who saw you threaten Garrett, and a county willing to believe the worst about your riders.”
“Then why speak without cameras?”
“Because I want the ledger.”
Silas laughed bitterly.
“You think I have it?”
“I think the boy does.”
“And you want me to convince him to hand it over.”
“I want you to understand what happens if he doesn’t.”
Hollis opened the door.
A deputy stood outside.
“Take him downstairs.”
“To the cells?”
Hollis looked at Silas.
“To transport.”
Meanwhile, Mara and Caleb had left the diner with the backpack.
They did not return to the rail depot. Dana had received an anonymous warning that state officers were preparing to raid it.
Instead, they traveled to Judge Avery’s private residence outside the county line.
Judge Avery admitted them through the garage.
She was seventy-two, sharp-eyed, and still wearing her courtroom clothes despite the late hour.
“You brought the ledger?” she asked.
Mara placed it on the dining table.
Judge Avery opened the first page.
Her expression darkened.
“My husband’s name is here.”
Caleb looked at her.
Judge Avery’s husband had died eighteen years earlier during routine surgery.
The ledger showed three accounts opened in his name after his death.
“I need to contact the attorney general directly,” she said.
“Can we trust them?” Mara asked.
“I trust one person.”
She went to her study.
Caleb remained beside the table.
He searched the index again.
His fabricated name appeared on page 214.
CALEB WARD.
Beside it was a cross-reference.
SUBJECT C-2.
He turned to the appendix.
SUBJECT C-2 appeared in a section labeled CONTINUITY CHILDREN.
The first entry read:
C-1, female, born at Miller County Hospital, status transferred.
The second read:
C-2, male, genetic match confirmed, gestation initiated.
Caleb stared at the words.
Mara read over his shoulder.
“Gestation initiated?”
“I don’t understand.”
She turned the page.
A list of medical procedures followed, all dated thirteen years earlier. The facility was identified only as LANTERN HOUSE.
At the bottom was a parent code.
Maternal source: A.R.
Paternal source: E.R.
Caleb’s mouth went dry.
“A.R. could be Anna Rourke.”
Mara nodded slowly.
“And E.R. could be Elias Rourke.”
Caleb pulled away.
“No.”
“Codes can mean anything.”
“Elias was her father.”
“I know.”
Caleb looked sick.
“This says they were my parents.”
Mara closed the ledger.
“It may not mean biological parents in the usual sense.”
“What other sense is there?”
Judge Avery returned from the study.
She had heard the final question.
“An experimental one,” she said.
They turned.
Judge Avery held an old medical journal.
Her hands trembled.
“Before my husband died, he investigated fertility research conducted at the state hospital. Embryos were created using genetic material taken without consent.”
Caleb stared at her.
“Are you saying I was made in a laboratory?”
“I’m saying the people behind Lantern used stolen identities, stolen property, and perhaps stolen genetic material.”
Mara opened the ledger again.
“Then Caleb may have been created years after Elias disappeared.”
Judge Avery nodded.
“And Anna may have been forced to carry him.”
Caleb stepped backward.
Every answer made his life feel less real.
A phone rang.
Judge Avery answered.
Her face changed immediately.
“What transport?”
She listened.
Then she looked at Mara.
“Silas is being moved from the county jail.”
“Where?”
“No destination was filed.”
Caleb grabbed the backpack.
“They’re taking him to the state hospital.”
Mara picked up her keys.
Judge Avery stopped her.
“Hollis has six patrol vehicles.”
Mara looked through the window.
Headlights appeared along the distant road.
Not police vehicles.
Motorcycles.
Dozens of them.
Ben’s voice came through Mara’s phone.
“We found the transport route.”
Mara looked at Caleb.
“Stay with the judge.”
Caleb shook his head.
May you like
Silas had refused to abandon him at the farmhouse.
Caleb would not abandon Silas now.
