Chapter 7 - What Emily Remembered
We moved the children to a secure police facility before asking Emily any more questions.
The room assigned to us looked less like an interview space than a small playroom. Shelves held puzzles, stuffed animals, and picture books. A painted tree covered one wall.
A child psychologist named Dr. Helen Ward sat with Emily while I watched through a one-way window with Detective Ortiz.
Noah slept in the adjoining room under the supervision of an officer.
Dr. Ward did not ask direct questions at first.
She invited Emily to draw the mansion.
Emily drew the front door, staircase, and library.
Then she added a narrow black rectangle beneath the kitchen.
“What is that?” Ward asked.
“The basement.”
“Our house doesn’t have a basement,” I whispered.
Ortiz said nothing.
Ward handed Emily another pencil.
“Who goes there?”
“Vanessa.”
“Anyone else?”
“The doctor.”
“What does the doctor look like?”
“He wears glasses.”
“Does he have a name?”
Emily began coloring the black rectangle harder.
“Dr. Sloane.”
Victor Sloane.
The Rainer executive named in Miriam’s complaint.
My father’s former business partner.
According to public records, Victor Sloane had retired to Switzerland after suffering a stroke three years earlier.
According to my daughter, he had been entering our home.
“What happens in the basement?” Ward asked.
Emily’s pencil stopped.
“He takes Noah.”
My knees nearly gave way.
“How many times?”
Emily’s answer came softly through the speaker.
“I don’t know.”
“Does he take you too?”
“Sometimes.”
“What does he do?”
“He puts the silver thing on our fingers.”
A pulse oximeter, perhaps.
“Anything else?”
“He takes red water.”
“Blood?”
Emily nodded.
“He says Noah is better.”
“Better than what?”
“Better than me.”
Ward waited.
Emily looked toward the mirrored wall.
Although she could not see me, her eyes seemed to meet mine.
“Daddy thinks we are asleep.”
I pressed my forehead to the glass.
Ward asked whether Vanessa hurt them before or after the doctor’s visits.
Emily said Vanessa punished them whenever they spoke, cried, resisted the tests, or attempted to contact me.
The hanger was only one method.
She locked Noah in a closet.
She forced Emily to stand barefoot in the cold laundry room.
She withheld food.
She told them I knew what was happening.
“She showed us papers with your name,” Emily said. “She said you signed them.”
“What papers?” Ward asked.
“The doctor papers.”
Ortiz looked at me.
I had signed hundreds of medical consent forms during the years after Sarah died.
Vaccinations.
School physicals.
Therapy.
Specialist visits Vanessa claimed the children needed.
Any one of those documents could have been altered.
“Where is the basement entrance?” Ward asked.
Emily drew the kitchen again.
She marked the pantry.
Behind the mansion’s kitchen pantry was an old wine cellar.
I had not entered it in years.
Vanessa controlled household renovations while I worked.
The police returned to the mansion with architectural engineers.
Behind a refrigerated wine wall, they found a concealed elevator.
It descended thirty feet below the house.
The chamber beneath was not an ordinary basement.
It was a clinical laboratory.
Two examination beds stood beneath surgical lights. Cabinets contained blood collection kits, sedatives, restraints, and temperature-controlled sample boxes.
Computer servers hummed behind glass partitions.
A children’s growth chart had been drawn on one wall.
Emily’s height appeared in blue.
Noah’s appeared in red.
Dates beside the marks went back almost three years.
The oldest date was two months before my wedding to Vanessa.
She had been testing my children before she officially lived with us.
Ortiz’s team found no personnel in the laboratory.
The records had been wiped minutes after the police entered the mansion.
But one device remained active.
A refrigerated storage unit required a biometric scan.
The lock accepted Noah’s fingerprint.
Inside were dozens of blood samples.
Most were labeled with codes.
Two bore full names.
EMILY MERCER.
NOAH MERCER.
The remaining shelves contained samples from other children.
Some dated back twenty-six years.
One label caught my attention.
V. SLOANE.
Another read M. HALE.
I called Marcus into the room.
When he saw his name, he backed away.
“That’s not possible.”
“What isn’t?”
“My blood.”
“Were you treated by Rainer as a child?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He stared at the sample.
“My parents died when I was seven. I spent a year in a private residential school before my aunt adopted me.”
“What school?”
His face had gone pale.
“Bellweather House.”
Ortiz searched the name.
Bellweather House had been funded by the Mercer Foundation and operated by Rainer Biotech.
It closed after a fire twenty-five years earlier.
Officially, twelve children died.
Marcus had survived.
Perhaps he was the child Sarah described as being closer to me than I could imagine.
A computer monitor inside the laboratory suddenly illuminated.
A live video appeared.
Vanessa sat in a dark room, still wearing the black dress.
She looked directly into the camera.
“Daniel, you need to take Noah and leave the police station.”
I stepped toward the screen.
“Where are you?”
“They are coming for him.”
“Who?”
“Everyone you trust.”
“You tortured my children.”
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“I kept them alive.”
“By beating them?”
“You don’t understand what happens when he becomes frightened.”
“Who?”
“Noah.”
A siren sounded somewhere above us.
Ortiz received a radio message.
May you like
The secure police facility had lost power.
The camera showing Noah’s room went black.
