Chapter 3 - THE GIRL OUTSIDE THE WINDOW
By the time Natalie reached the hospital, officers had searched the parking structure, roof, staircases, and surrounding streets.
No child had been found.
Ashley sat upright in bed with Buddy pressed to her face.
Natalie closed the door.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Ashley pointed toward the rain-streaked window.
“She was there.”
“Outside?”
Ashley shook her head.
“Across.”
There was another building across the narrow service courtyard.
An older medical wing scheduled for renovation.
Most of its rooms were empty.
“Which window?”
Ashley pointed.
Fourth floor.
Two rooms to the left.
Natalie looked.
Nothing.
“Did you know the girl?”
Ashley nodded.
Natalie slowly turned back.
“What’s her name?”
Ashley whispered,
“Emily.”
The name struck Natalie harder than she expected.
“How do you know Emily?”
“She came to our house.”
“When?”
“Before Daddy left.”
Natalie pulled the chair closer.
“Yesterday?”
Ashley nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Daddy said I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because bad people would take her again.”
Natalie’s heart pounded.
“What did Emily look like?”
“Like me.”
“Exactly like you?”
Ashley frowned.
“Older.”
“How much older?”
“Not much.”
Natalie remembered the hospital photograph.
Two newborns.
Infant B.
Emily’s playground picture.
If Ashley and Emily were twins, they would be the same age.
Unless one of the dates was wrong.
Or one of the children was not who Andrew believed.
“Where did Emily go?”
Ashley looked toward the door.
“Daddy hid her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she leave with him?”
Ashley shook her head.
“She went with the lady.”
“What lady?”
Ashley’s mouth tightened.
“The doctor.”
Natalie felt a chill.
“What doctor?”
“The one who knew Mommy.”
Before Ashley could answer, Marcus entered.
“We found something in the other building.”
Natalie followed him through the connecting corridor.
The abandoned fourth-floor room smelled like dust and bleach.
A chair had been positioned near the window.
Someone had been there recently.
On the floor sat a juice box, still cold.
Beside it lay a plastic bracelet.
Natalie bent down.
No hospital logo.
No patient name.
Only a printed number.
214.
The same number stamped on the key from beneath the swing set.
Marcus looked around.
“Whoever was here left in a hurry.”
Natalie noticed something taped beneath the windowsill.
A photograph.
Andrew Parker.
Alive.
Standing beside a gas station.
The date stamp showed six hours earlier.
Natalie stared.
“That’s today.”
Marcus examined it.
“He survived the crash.”
“Or this photo was taken before.”
“Timestamp metadata?”
“Could be manipulated.”
Natalie turned the picture over.
On the back:
HE IS NOT RUNNING FROM THE POLICE.
HE IS RUNNING FROM US.
Marcus looked toward the window.
“Us who?”
Natalie thought of Rebecca Parker.
Of Infant B.
Of Emily.
Of the stranger who claimed to be Ashley’s uncle.
Of the sealed envelope dated tomorrow.
“We need to know what Camp Hawthorne was.”
The county archive listed Camp Hawthorne as a privately operated behavioral retreat from 1998 to 2011.
But old tax records told a different story.
The property had belonged to Hawthorne Family Health Foundation.
The foundation had operated three maternity clinics.
One of them was where Ashley had been born.
Natalie and Marcus drove north that afternoon.
Camp Hawthorne sat behind rusted iron gates surrounded by pine forest.
The main lodge had collapsed partly inward.
Cabins leaned beneath moss and vines.
No signs suggested recent occupation.
Until Natalie noticed tire tracks.
Fresh.
They followed them to the rear of the property.
There, hidden beneath an old equipment shed, they found a steel door.
The key marked 214 fit the lock.
Below was a concrete corridor.
Electric lights glowed.
Marcus drew his weapon.
“This place has power.”
They moved slowly.
Room 210.
Empty.
Room 211.
Medical shelves.
Room 212.
Old filing cabinets.
Room 213.
A child’s bed.
Room 214.
Locked from the inside.
Natalie knocked.
Silence.
“Police.”
A scraping sound came from within.
Marcus raised his gun.
The lock clicked.
The door opened three inches.
A girl stared through the gap.
Brown hair.
Gray eyes.
Same small nose.
Same face Natalie had been looking at in a hospital bed all morning.
Natalie could not speak.
The girl whispered,
“Is Ashley safe?”
Natalie lowered her weapon.
“Emily?”
The girl began to cry.
Behind her, a woman stepped into view wearing a white medical coat.
Natalie recognized her from old county records.
May you like
Dr. Helen Mercer.
The physician who had signed Rebecca Parker’s death certificate.
