Chapter 9 - north house)
North House looked peaceful from the outside.
That was the worst part.
A three story brick building stood among tall pine trees beside Blackwater Lake.
There were white curtains in the windows.
Flower boxes.
A stone path.
From a distance it might have been a private boarding school.
Inside, police found locked rooms.
Restraint straps.
Medical equipment.
Sedatives.
False identification documents.
A basement pharmacy.
And twenty three years of patient records.
Daniel arrived behind Ava.
Officers stopped him at the entrance.
"You cannot go inside."
"My wife is in there."
"We don't know that."
Daniel stared through the doorway.
A woman sat at the far end of the hall wrapped in a gray blanket.
Dark hair.
Thin shoulders.
Daniel stopped breathing.
"Mara."
The woman looked up.
Their eyes met.
Daniel felt eighteen months collapse into a single second.
He stepped forward.
"Mara."
She stood.
Then fear spread across her face.
"No."
Daniel stopped.
She backed away.
"No. Keep him away from me."
Daniel's heart broke.
"Mara, it's me."
She screamed.
"Don't let him touch me."
Two officers stepped between them.
Daniel looked at Ava.
"What did they do to her?"
Ava spoke quietly.
"We don't know."
Mara pointed at him.
"He signed the papers."
Daniel shook his head.
"No. They forged them."
"You left me here."
"No."
"You told them I was sick."
"Mara."
"You wanted Lily."
Daniel could not speak.
Ava approached Mara slowly.
"Mara, do you know today's date?"
Mara gave the wrong year.
Eighteen months wrong.
Daniel turned away.
A doctor examined her.
She showed signs of long term sedative exposure.
Malnutrition.
Memory fragmentation.
There were needle marks on both arms.
But she was alive.
Daniel stood outside the examination room crying silently.
He had imagined finding Mara a thousand times.
She would run toward him.
He would hold her.
Lily would have her mother again.
Instead Mara feared him.
Hours later Hannah brought Lily.
Daniel worried it was too soon.
But the moment Mara saw her daughter, everything changed.
"Lily?"
Lily froze.
"Mommy?"
Mara collapsed to her knees.
Lily ran.
They held each other.
Mara sobbed into Lily's hair.
Daniel watched from the doorway.
Then Mara looked at him.
For a moment there was confusion.
Fear.
Then something else.
Recognition.
"Daniel."
He did not move.
She looked around the room.
"Where's my mother?"
"Police custody."
Mara closed her eyes.
"Thomas?"
"Gone."
"Keene?"
"Gone."
Daniel crouched several feet away.
"Mara, I didn't sign those papers."
She looked at him.
"I know."
Daniel froze.
"What?"
Her voice lowered.
"I know you didn't."
"But you said."
"I had to."
"Why?"
Mara looked toward the security camera mounted in the corner.
Daniel followed her gaze.
Then he understood her recording.
Don't trust the first story I tell you.
Mara whispered.
"They are still watching."
Ava immediately ordered the camera removed.
It was not connected to the building system.
It transmitted wirelessly.
Someone outside North House had been watching the rescue in real time.
Technicians traced the signal.
It ended twelve miles away.
At an empty house.
Inside the house police found computer equipment.
Surveillance monitors.
Burned documents.
And photographs.
Hundreds of photographs.
Daniel.
Lily.
Mara.
Lydia.
Ava.
Even photographs taken inside the hospital after the freezer incident.
Someone had been following every move.
On one desk they found a recent photograph of Thomas Vane.
His eyes were closed.
Blood covered his shirt.
May you like
On the back someone had written a date.
Tomorrow.
