THE FOOTAGE THEY TRIED TO BURY

Claire replayed the recording.

There was nothing after Margaret’s final sentence.

Rose was alive.

Rose had been close to the Whitaker family.

Robert walked through the nursery, staring at the crossed-out names. Some belonged to children who would now be in their thirties and forties. Others were only initials.

Cassandra sat on the edge of an empty crib.

“If I’m not Rose, who am I?”

Leah stood near the doorway.

“We need the missing ledger pages.”

Cassandra looked at her.

“And you need to tell us why Jonathan raised you.”

Leah’s expression tightened.

“He believed I knew where Samuel hid his copy.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

Victoria, recovering from surgery under guard, had told Claire that Leah once worked inside the Cross estate using a false identity.

Cassandra’s suspicion deepened.

“You were in my house for years.”

“I was seventeen when Jonathan brought me there.”

“You said nothing to me.”

“You were a child.”

“So were you.”

Leah looked away.

Robert searched the cabinet again.

Beneath the recorder was a stack of photographs.

One showed Ellen entering Morning Star with a young Michael.

Ellen stared at it.

“I don’t remember this.”

The date on the back indicated Michael had been six years old.

Robert remembered that year. Ellen had taken Michael on what she called a weekend visit to an old friend.

“Why did you bring him here?” he asked.

“I truly don’t remember.”

Claire examined the photograph.

“Could you have been drugged?”

Ellen touched her temple.

“There are missing days from that summer.”

Michael looked at her.

“You never told us.”

“I thought I was exhausted.”

Another photograph showed Michael sitting beside a dark-haired girl of about eight. They held identical wooden stars.

On the back, someone had written:

The Whitaker children.

Robert’s throat tightened.

“That could be Rose.”

Michael studied the girl.

“I remember her.”

Everyone turned.

“You do?” Ellen asked.

“Not clearly. I remember calling her Vivi.”

Leah went pale.

“Vivi?”

“Yes.”

“That was Victoria’s childhood name.”

Cassandra stood.

“Victoria is Rose?”

Leah shook her head.

“She was older than Michael by five years.”

“The records could have been changed,” Claire said.

Robert remembered Victoria’s reaction in the chapel and her claim that Samuel had tried to rescue her.

“Victoria told us she was not Samuel’s daughter,” Robert said. “But she never said who her parents were.”

Claire called the hospital.

Victoria’s guarded room was empty.

She had vanished less than twenty minutes earlier.

A nurse had found the window open and the officer outside unconscious.

Robert looked toward the photographs.

“She knew we would come here.”

Michael picked up the wooden star from the cabinet.

A tiny compartment opened on the back.

Inside was a folded strip of paper.

Claire unfolded it.

An address was written in Margaret’s handwriting.

Robert recognized it.

“That is our first house.”

The small home where Robert and Ellen had lived when Michael was born had been sold twenty-seven years earlier.

The current owner allowed the agents to search after Claire explained the investigation.

In Michael’s old nursery, they found nothing until Ellen began humming the lullaby.

When she reached the words silver door, Robert noticed a metal ventilation panel painted white.

Behind it was a narrow cavity.

Inside lay the missing ledger pages.

There were also letters addressed to Ellen, Samuel, and a woman named Anna Cross.

Claire spread the pages across the floor.

The entry for B-17 had been rewritten.

Female. Birth mother Ellen Whitaker.

Biological father Robert Whitaker.

Placement: Morning Star, temporary.

Later transfer: A.C.

“What does A.C. mean?” Michael asked.

“Anna Cross,” Cassandra whispered.

Robert looked at her.

“Jonathan’s aunt.”

“She was the woman who taught me the lullaby.”

Claire opened the letter addressed to Anna.

Margaret accused her of taking Rose from Morning Star and raising the child under a false identity.

“Who was Anna’s daughter?” Robert asked.

Cassandra shook her head.

“Officially, she never had children.”

Leah sat suddenly.

“She did.”

Everyone looked at her.

“When I lived at the estate, there was a woman who visited Anna every month. Jonathan called her a family adviser.”

“What was her name?”

Leah hesitated.

“Claire.”

The investigator went still.

Robert looked at her.

Claire Donovan’s expression did not change, but her hand moved toward the weapon at her belt.

Leah continued.

“She looked different then. Dark hair. Different name. But it was you.”

Cassandra backed away.

Claire closed the ledger.

“You are mistaken.”

“No,” Leah whispered. “Anna called you Rosie.”

Robert felt the room tighten around them.

“Claire,” he said, “put the ledger down.”

She looked at him.

“You don’t understand.”

“Are you Rose Whitaker?”

Her eyes filled with something between fury and grief.

“I don’t know.”

Michael stepped closer.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I spent twenty years being told I was Anna’s niece. Then Margaret found me and claimed I was Ellen’s daughter. Then Jonathan produced documents proving I was born in another state.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Robert asked.

“Because I needed evidence before walking into your life.”

“You already walked into it.”

“I was trying to protect the investigation.”

Leah laughed bitterly.

“You were controlling it.”

Claire raised her voice.

“I was the only federal investigator willing to touch the Cross family.”

“Because you wanted the ledger,” Leah said.

“Yes.”

“For justice?”

Claire’s expression hardened.