Chapter 7 - THE CHILD WHO NEVER EXISTED
Officially, Rebecca Carter never gave birth.
Her medical records showed no confirmed pregnancy.
Michael Carter’s private notes showed otherwise.
Olivia opened box after box on the dining room table.
Christmas dinner sat untouched in the kitchen.
Snow continued accumulating outside.
Dylan canceled every call.
Margaret called the hospital and said she would not return that evening.
Noah slept in a bassinet beside Olivia.
For the first time in eight months, Dylan and Olivia worked together.
Not as lovers.
As parents trying to understand why their child had become part of a conspiracy older than their relationship.
Michael’s archive contained one page neither Olivia nor Margaret had noticed before.
It had been folded inside a tax document.
At the top were three handwritten words.
REBECCA DELIVERED EARLY.
Below:
August 4, 1997.
Location unknown.
Male infant.
Dylan stared.
“She had a boy.”
“Yes,” Olivia said.
“Where is he?”
“No one knows.”
Margaret examined the paper.
“This handwriting isn’t Michael’s.”
Olivia leaned closer.
“Then whose?”
Margaret touched the ink.
“I think it’s Charles’s.”
Dylan felt sick.
His father knew Rebecca had given birth.
The child would now be twenty-nine.
Almost thirty.
A half brother.
Somewhere.
Maybe alive.
Maybe not.
Olivia flipped the page.
There was a second line.
Transferred under WN-14.
Margaret whispered:
“Winter North.”
Dylan frowned.
“I thought it was North Winter.”
“The reversal may have been used for internal designations.”
Olivia searched another file.
She found a photocopy of a private adoption database.
One entry had been circled.
Male infant.
Born August 1997.
Transferred to a family in Vermont.
Record sealed.
Name redacted.
Dylan leaned closer.
“Can we identify him?”
“Maybe.”
Olivia turned to Margaret.
“My father investigated every sealed adoption in that period.”
“Did he find anything?”
“One.”
She opened another folder.
A child named Adam Pierce.
Born August 4, 1997.
Adopted by Thomas and Evelyn Pierce of Burlington, Vermont.
Dylan stared.
“Where is he now?”
Olivia searched the notes.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“He died.”
“When?”
“2014.”
Dylan exhaled.
“Seventeen?”
Olivia nodded.
“Car accident.”
Margaret reached for the report.
She read silently.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“This hospital.”
Olivia looked.
Adam Pierce had been brought to St. Catherine’s after the accident.
Margaret had worked there.
“You remember him?”
“No.”
“But?”
Margaret pointed at the attending physician.
Dr. Julian Wren.
Victoria’s longtime private physician.
Dylan stood.
“That’s not a coincidence.”
Olivia kept reading.
Adam’s body had been released directly to a private funeral home.
No autopsy.
Closed-casket service.
Dylan looked at Margaret.
“You think he didn’t die.”
“I think someone didn’t want questions.”
Olivia whispered:
“What if Adam Pierce was Rebecca’s son?”
Dylan thought of his father’s final message.
Find the child before North Winter does.
“What if they found him first?”
A sound came from outside.
Crunching snow.
Dylan looked toward the window.
A black SUV was parked across the street.
Its lights were off.
“Was that there before?”
Olivia looked.
“No.”
Dylan moved toward the curtain.
The SUV started.
It drove away.
Margaret stood.
“We need to leave.”
Olivia looked at Noah.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Dylan nodded.
“My apartment has private security.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No Hayes property.”
“Why?”
“Because North Winter may have access.”
Dylan looked at his phone.
He thought of corporate systems.
Family offices.
Security staff.
He suddenly realized he did not know who belonged to his mother and who belonged to something larger.
“Where do we go?”
Margaret answered.
“Michael prepared for this.”
Olivia stared.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“He left a place.”
“What place?”
“A house in Maine.”
Olivia had never heard of it.
Margaret went to the archive.
She pulled out an old Christmas card.
Inside was a handwritten address.
Dylan read it.
“Black Harbor?”
Margaret nodded.
Olivia looked at Noah.
“You think we should drive three hours in a snowstorm with a two-day-old baby?”
“No.”
May you like
Margaret took out her phone.
“I think we should disappear.”
