Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN WHO STOLE GRACE
Eleanor was gone.
So was Helen Ross.
So was Emily.
Security footage showed Eleanor entering the NICU using a valid military medical credential.
Nobody knew where she obtained it.
She carried Grace out in a transport incubator.
Helen assisted.
Emily walked beside them.
Sarah wanted Eleanor arrested.
Then she remembered David’s note.
Trust the person who took her.
Especially if it’s my mother.
“What did he know?” Sarah demanded.
Nathan studied the letter.
“Maybe the hospital wasn’t secure.”
“It was a military hospital.”
“So?”
Sarah looked at Hale.
He did not argue.
They checked NICU personnel.
One nurse had no employment record prior to six months earlier.
A physician’s identity belonged to a doctor who died two years ago.
The hospital had already been infiltrated.
Eleanor had recognized something.
Maybe she saved Grace again.
Sarah hated needing to believe that.
Twelve hours later, Sterling received a package.
No return address.
Inside was Grace’s hospital bracelet.
Sarah nearly collapsed.
Then she noticed blood.
Not Grace’s.
Adult blood.
A note:
SARAH, COME ALONE.
OLD CHAPEL.
Sarah laughed bitterly.
“Everyone always wants me alone.”
Hale refused.
Sarah went anyway with surveillance support.
The old chapel sat on land once owned by Saint Catherine’s.
Inside, candles burned.
Eleanor stood near the altar.
Holding Grace.
Sarah stopped.
Her daughter was wrapped in a white blanket.
Alive.
Sleeping.
Sarah almost ran forward.
Then saw the gun in Eleanor’s other hand.
“Give her to me.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
“Sarah, listen.”
“I am finished listening.”
Eleanor looked exhausted.
Blood stained her sleeve.
“Charles found us.”
Sarah froze.
“Where?”
“At the safe house.”
“Emily?”
“Alive.”
“Helen?”
“Alive.”
“Then why are you bleeding?”
“I shot one of his men.”
Sarah stared.
Eleanor almost smiled.
“I’m old, not helpless.”
Despite herself, Sarah believed it.
“Why bring Grace here?”
“Because this chapel is where the original Saint Catherine’s records were hidden.”
Sarah looked around.
“Why?”
“Confessions.”
“What?”
“The clinic founders were Catholic.”
Sarah nearly laughed at the absurdity.
“They trafficked babies and stored confessions in a chapel?”
“People are complicated.”
Fair enough.
Eleanor touched a panel beneath the altar.
A compartment opened.
Inside were microfilm reels.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
And audio tapes.
“The Trust kept everything.”
“Why?”
“Insurance against each other.”
Sarah stepped closer.
“Give me Grace.”
Eleanor handed the baby over.
Sarah held her daughter for the first time.
Nothing else existed.
Not David.
Not Eleanor.
Not the Trust.
Only Grace.
Tiny.
Warm.
Breathing.
Sarah cried silently against her forehead.
Then Grace opened her eyes.
David’s eyes.
Sarah laughed through tears.
“Hi.”
Behind her, Eleanor whispered, “He would have loved her.”
Sarah looked up.
“He did.”
Past tense hurt.
But it was true.
Sarah placed Grace securely against her chest.
Then they opened the records.
The truth was worse than expected.
Saint Catherine’s had operated a private reproductive selection network for more than four decades.
Babies transferred.
Paternity altered.
Embryos created.
Families blackmailed.
Politicians controlled through secret parentage.
Corporate alliances engineered through marriage.
Some participants knew.
Most did not.
David had spent years collecting evidence.
Then Sarah found his personal file.
A handwritten page.
If I fail, Sarah finishes this.
Her throat tightened.
Below:
But she must never learn about SUBJECT E until Grace is safe.
Sarah stared.
“Who is Subject E?”
Eleanor looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know.”
They searched.
No Subject E file.
But one audio cassette bore the label.
E.
Sarah inserted it into an old player.
David’s voice.
“Subject E was born thirty-four years ago.”
Sarah frowned.
Thirty-four.
Chloe’s age.
Eleanor looked at her daughter’s age reflected in the number.
“No.”
David continued.
“She was raised inside the Whitmore family.”
Eleanor’s face collapsed.
Sarah stared.
David said:
“She believes Eleanor is her biological mother.”
Eleanor whispered, “Chloe.”
The recording continued.
“She isn’t.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
Another stolen child.
Another false identity.
David continued.
“Subject E’s biological mother was Margaret Hale.”
Hale’s supposed mother.
David’s biological mother.
Which could make Chloe—
David’s sister.
Not Eleanor’s daughter.
Eleanor sat down.
“I raised her.”
Sarah understood the pain.
Biology had become a weapon in this family.
David’s recording continued.
“But that’s not the dangerous part.”
Sarah looked at the machine.
“The dangerous part is Subject E’s father.”
A gunshot exploded outside.
Eleanor grabbed her weapon.
Sarah shielded Grace.
Hale and federal agents burst through the side entrance.
Then Chloe entered behind them.
Alive.
“Mother?”
Eleanor looked at her.
Tears filled both women’s eyes.
David’s voice continued:
“Chloe’s father is Charles Brooks.”
Sterling, standing behind Hale, froze.
His father.
Meaning Chloe and Sterling were paternal siblings.
The tangled family tree tightened again.
Chloe stared.
“What did he say?”
Nobody answered.
Then David’s recording delivered the final line:
“And Charles didn’t create Subject E by accident.”
The tape clicked off.
On the other side was one handwritten phrase.
E = ELIZABETH.
Eleanor’s face turned white.
“My daughter.”
Sarah looked at Chloe.
Then Eleanor.
Subject E was not Chloe.
Elizabeth.
The biological daughter Eleanor believed had been stolen after birth.
She had been raised inside the Whitmore family.
May you like
Sarah whispered:
“Who else did you raise?”
