Chapter 8 - The Boy Beneath the Table
We reached the police facility in eleven minutes.
By then, the backup generators had restored partial power.
Two officers lay unconscious in the rear corridor.
A third had suffered a broken arm.
Noah’s room was empty.
The window remained locked.
The ventilation grate above the bed had been removed from inside the wall.
Someone had entered through the maintenance system and carried him away.
Emily stood in the hallway wrapped in a police blanket.
“He said he was Daddy’s friend,” she told me.
“Did you see him?”
“No. I heard him talking to Noah.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Mommy Sarah was waiting.”
That name was chosen to make Noah cooperate.
Whoever took him knew my son still called his biological mother Mommy Sarah.
Ortiz placed the city under an abduction alert.
Roadblocks were established.
Security footage showed a white maintenance van leaving the facility three minutes before power returned.
The license plate belonged to a hospital vehicle reported stolen that afternoon.
Inside Noah’s room, investigators found a folded paper beneath the bed.
It contained an address and a time.
BELLWEATHER RUINS.
MIDNIGHT.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE BOY.
Ortiz refused to let me go alone.
“We don’t know who sent this.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will if they kill you before you find your son.”
Marcus entered the hallway.
“I know the grounds.”
“No,” I said.
“Daniel, Bellweather House was built over old service tunnels. If Noah is there, you will never find him without someone who remembers them.”
“You were seven.”
“I remember enough.”
Emily pulled on my sleeve.
“Daddy, don’t go.”
I knelt.
“I have to bring Noah home.”
She shook her head.
“It’s a trick.”
“How do you know?”
“Vanessa used to say Bellweather when she was angry. She told the doctor she would never go back.”
Vanessa had been connected to the same institution as Marcus.
The sample marked V. Sloane might not have referred to Victor.
It might have belonged to Vanessa.
“Was Vanessa at Bellweather with you?” I asked Marcus.
“I don’t remember anyone named Vanessa.”
“She used another name.”
“Elise?”
“Maybe.”
He closed his eyes.
“I remember a girl with blonde hair. She used to sing when the doctors came.”
“What was her name?”
“Violet.”
V. Sloane.
Perhaps Vanessa was Victor Sloane’s daughter.
Or one of his test subjects renamed as family.
At eleven thirty, we approached the Bellweather ruins through the forest.
The main building had burned almost completely. Blackened stone walls stood beneath overgrown vines. Moonlight fell through empty windows.
Ortiz’s tactical team surrounded the grounds while Marcus and I entered through a collapsed service passage.
The air inside smelled of wet earth and ash.
Marcus carried an old floor plan recovered from city archives.
“This tunnel should lead beneath the dormitory,” he whispered.
“How much do you remember?”
“Flashes.”
“What kind of flashes?”
“White rooms. Needles. Children crying.”
“Did you know my father?”
His silence answered me.
“He visited,” Marcus said finally. “I didn’t know who he was until years later.”
“And you became my friend by coincidence?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
He stopped walking.
“I applied to the same university because Mercer Foundation funded my tuition. I met you during orientation. I had no idea who you were until you introduced yourself.”
The tunnel divided.
A soft cry echoed from the left passage.
“Noah,” I said.
We ran toward the sound.
It led us into a circular chamber beneath the ruins.
Noah sat in the center of the floor.
His hands were tied, but he appeared unharmed.
A portable lamp illuminated him.
“Noah!”
I rushed forward.
Marcus grabbed my shoulder.
“Wait.”
Wires ran beneath the boy’s chair.
I stopped.
A speaker clicked overhead.
Vanessa’s voice filled the chamber.
“You should have listened to me.”
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.”
“Release him.”
“I didn’t take Noah.”
“Then who did?”
A second light turned on.
Detective Owen Briggs sat against the far wall.
His hospital gown was soaked with blood.
He had been tied to a pipe.
“You,” he gasped, looking at Marcus. “It was always you.”
Marcus stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
Briggs coughed.
“The boy was bait. Daniel was the target.”
The metal door behind us slammed shut.
Gas began pouring from vents along the floor.
Marcus covered his mouth.
I ran to Noah, lifted the entire chair, and carried him toward the door.
The speaker crackled again.
May you like
This time, the voice belonged to Victor Sloane.
“Let us see whether the Mercer children inherited their grandfather’s gift.”
