Chapter 11 - The Train Beneath the Lake
Emma's bedtime story about the train was called The Railway That Forgot Its Name.
She remembered a train with seven cars.
It traveled beneath water.
Every passenger carried someone else's name.
At midnight it stopped where bells could not ring.
Daniel listened from the doorway.
Then he remembered an abandoned rail tunnel beneath Lake Monroe.
Built for mining.
Closed fifty years earlier.
The tunnel entrance had been sealed.
Officially.
Agents found a newer steel door behind the concrete barrier.
Inside was not a railway.
It was an archive facility built along the old tracks.
Temperature controlled.
Backup generators.
Document storage.
Servers.
Hundreds of sealed evidence containers.
Hollow Creek's master archive.
The files exposed far more than child trafficking.
Judges had accepted bribes.
Police officers had altered reports.
Doctors had falsified deaths.
Banks had hidden payments.
Politicians had intervened in custody cases.
Wealthy families had purchased children through fabricated adoptions.
Some victims had been taken because of debt.
Others because parents were undocumented.
Others because mothers were addicted, homeless, incarcerated or simply considered unlikely to fight successfully.
The archive contained more than six hundred children.
Some were now adults.
Some were missing.
Some were dead.
Grace Miller's file held a final surprise.
She had accessed the archive eleven days before her death.
How?
A security photograph showed her inside the tunnel.
Beside her stood a man.
Not Daniel.
Robert.
Lisa stared at it.
"Robert helped Grace."
That did not fit anything they knew.
Robert murdered Grace.
Robert drugged the twins.
Robert threatened Emma.
But eleven days earlier, Robert had apparently helped Grace reach the master archive.
James confronted him.
Robert smiled.
"You finally found it."
"You took Grace there."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She paid me."
"With what?"
Robert leaned back.
"The one thing I wanted."
"What?"
"Freedom."
Robert explained that Hollow Creek owned him too.
He had borrowed money young.
Then performed jobs to repay it.
Collections.
Threats.
Transport.
Eventually murder.
Grace offered him a deal.
Help her copy the archive and Daniel's evidence could destroy Hollow Creek.
Robert agreed.
But Harrison discovered them.
Grace was ordered killed.
Robert was told to do it.
"Did you?"
Robert looked at James.
"I went there intending to."
"That's not an answer."
"No."
"Who killed Grace?"
Robert's expression changed.
"I don't know."
"You were in the house."
"I found her already on the floor."
"The camera shows you."
"After."
"Caleb saw you arguing with her."
"I argued. I left."
"You drugged the twins."
Robert looked down.
"No."
James slammed both hands onto the table.
"The babies had phenobarbital."
"I didn't give it."
"Emma heard you complain about them crying."
Robert looked up.
"I told Grace the babies were crying because I was warning her somebody could hear them."
James paused.
"Who?"
Robert leaned forward.
"There was another person inside that house."
"The silver-haired man?"
"Harrison arrived later."
"Then who?"
Robert whispered, "Grace's killer."
"Name."
"I never saw the face."
"What did you see?"
Robert closed his eyes.
"White medical shoes."
James thought of Nathan Cole.
But Nathan was already under investigation.
Robert shook his head.
"Not Nathan."
"How do you know?"
"Because Nathan limps."
James stared.
Robert added, "And whoever killed Grace knew exactly how much medication to give newborns without killing them immediately."
A doctor.
A nurse.
Someone medical.
Sarah suddenly remembered Grace's hospital chart.
May you like
Another person had accessed it after Nathan.
Dr. Michael Carter.
