Chapter 7 - The Dead Father
Daniel Miller's factory death had been carefully manufactured.
The burned body identified as Daniel belonged to another man.
A homeless veteran named Patrick Sloan.
His dental records had been switched.
His fingerprints misfiled.
The medical examiner who signed Daniel's death certificate had retired three months later and moved overseas.
Daniel disappeared.
Why?
Lisa found part of the answer in the Hollow Creek warehouse.
Daniel had become an informant.
He had collected names, transactions and photographs.
He had tried to expose the organization after realizing Ethan had been trafficked through it.
But before he could go public, somebody discovered him.
He staged his death to protect Grace and Emma.
For almost two years, Daniel lived underground.
Then last Christmas he returned long enough to give Emma the brass key.
He had found evidence.
The red room.
But after Christmas, nothing.
Until the blood appeared in Robert's truck.
Police traced the vehicle's GPS history.
Three days before Grace's death, it visited a hunting cabin owned by Robert.
Teams entered at dawn.
The cabin was empty.
But the basement contained restraints.
Medical supplies.
Blood.
Daniel's blood.
And a message carved into the wooden floor.
EMMA KNOWS THE WAY.
James stared at the words.
"What does that mean?"
At the hospital he asked her.
Emma looked confused.
"Daddy said you know the way."
Emma thought for a long time.
Then reached beneath her pillow.
She removed the wooden horse Ethan had brought.
"Daddy made toys."
"We know."
"He always hid things inside them."
Ethan heard her.
He picked up the horse.
There was a tiny seam beneath its belly.
James found a screwdriver.
Inside was a rolled piece of paper.
A map.
Hand drawn.
It showed Hollow Creek Road.
The warehouse.
The Miller farmhouse.
And a fourth location deep inside county forest land.
Marked with one word.
HOME.
The site belonged to an abandoned children's summer camp.
Closed fifteen years earlier after a fire.
Police found underground rooms beneath one of the cabins.
Beds.
Cages.
Medical equipment.
A record room.
There were photographs from Hollow Creek's earliest years.
Children had been held there.
Some had been given new identities.
Others had vanished.
Then they found Daniel.
Alive.
Barely.
Locked inside a storage room beneath the camp dining hall.
He had been beaten.
Dehydrated.
His left arm was fractured.
But he was alive.
When paramedics carried him out, Daniel kept repeating one name.
"Grace."
Nobody told him until the hospital.
James stood beside his bed.
Daniel looked at his face.
"Is she alive?"
James had delivered death notifications before.
They never became easy.
"I'm sorry."
Daniel closed his eyes.
The sound that came from him did not resemble crying.
It sounded like something collapsing.
"My children?"
"Emma is safe."
"The twins?"
"Alive."
Daniel stared.
"Twins?"
James stopped.
"You didn't know?"
Daniel shook his head.
Grace became pregnant after Daniel disappeared.
He had never known Noah and Ellie existed.
James explained.
Then Daniel asked the question that made everything stranger.
"Why didn't Robert take Emma?"
James frowned.
"He tried."
"No."
Daniel struggled to sit.
"You don't understand."
"What?"
"Emma was never supposed to be touched."
"Why?"
Daniel looked toward the closed door.
"Because Hollow Creek doesn't want Emma."
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"Then what?"
Daniel whispered, "They're afraid of her."
