Chapter 8 - The First House
Police traced the message for eleven seconds before the signal disappeared.
The transmission bounced through servers in four countries.
There was no usable location.
Mia’s mother, Teresa Torres, had not arrived at work that morning.
Her car was found at a bus station with the keys beneath the driver’s seat.
No blood.
No signs of struggle.
The surveillance cameras had been disabled for exactly seven minutes.
Mia blamed herself.
Valeria blamed herself too.
Detective Bell blamed Daniel, Holloway and Dr. Vale.
“We do not negotiate by sending two teenage girls into an unknown location,” he said.
Mia paced inside the hospital’s private conference room.
“She will kill my mother.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She said donor.”
“We also don’t know what that means.”
“We know enough.”
Valeria sat in a wheelchair near the table.
She had been transferred out of intensive care but remained weak.
A portable antibiotic pump hung beside her.
“What is the first house?” she asked Elena.
Her mother had been brought from protective custody after receiving assurances that Daniel could not contact her.
Elena studied the photograph on Mia’s phone.
“The first house was where Meridian began.”
“Where?”
“I never went there.”
“You attended an adoption ceremony.”
“That was at a hotel.”
“You said you saw the symbol before Meridian.”
“I saw it on a document.”
Valeria leaned forward.
“Stop giving us pieces.”
Elena pressed her hands together.
“Daniel kept a red ledger in a safe.”
“What was inside?”
“Payments. Names. Addresses.”
“Where is it?”
“He moved it last year.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Mia slammed both hands against the table.
“My mother is tied to a chair, and you keep saying you don’t know!”
Elena flinched.
Mia pointed at the photograph from the lake house.
“You knew I was there too, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You looked after me when I was little.”
Elena stared at her.
“What?”
Mia touched her forehead.
“I remember your voice.”
Elena’s face changed.
“You were called Mara.”
The name struck Mia like a blow.
“What did you say?”
“At the facility. They called you Mara.”
Mia sat slowly.
“My name is Mia.”
“Teresa changed it.”
“You knew my mother?”
“She was a nurse at Meridian.”
Mia looked at Bell.
“My mother worked for them?”
Elena nodded before he could answer.
“She helped families receive the children.”
“She stole me?”
“I don’t know.”
Mia laughed through tears.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Elena reached toward her.
Mia moved away.
“Teresa disappeared after a child died during testing,” Elena said.
“Which child?”
“V-3.”
Valeria looked at the photographs.
The girl labeled V-3 appeared to be eight years old.
“What happened to her?”
“She had a reaction to an experimental drug.”
“And Teresa took Mia?”
“I think she tried to save her.”
Mia stared at the threatening photograph.
“Then Dr. Vale wants revenge.”
“Maybe,” Bell said. “Or she wants leverage.”
Valeria focused on the phrase beneath the image.
First house.
Something stirred inside her memory.
A staircase.
Yellow wallpaper.
A red door beneath the stairs.
Children singing numbers.
She shut her eyes.
“One for the source,” she whispered.
Everyone looked at her.
“Two for the blood.”
The words came without thought.
“Three for the silence.”
Her pulse quickened.
“Four for the flood.”
Mia whispered the next line.
“Five for the mother.”
They stared at each other.
Valeria continued.
“Six for the son.”
Mia’s voice shook.
“Seven remembers.”
Together, they spoke the final line.
“Eight becomes one.”
No one moved.
Bell wrote the rhyme down.
“How do you both know that?”
Neither girl could answer.
Valeria saw the red door again.
Above it hung a wooden sign carved with a heron.
“The first house is not a laboratory,” she said.
“What is it?” Bell asked.
“An orphanage.”
Elena stood.
“There was an orphanage near Blackwater Lake.”
“The burned warehouse address?”
“No. Before the warehouse. Meridian used a children’s home called Saint Orison.”
Bell searched the name.
No active institution appeared.
An archived newspaper article described a fire at Saint Orison Children’s Home nineteen years earlier.
Eleven children were presumed dead.
No bodies were recovered.
The property had been rebuilt as a private residence.
A photograph showed yellow wallpaper visible through a broken window.
A red door stood beneath the stairs.
The current owner was a holding company associated with Grant Holloway.
Bell immediately ordered a tactical team to the property.
He instructed Valeria and Mia to remain inside the hospital.
Valeria agreed.
Mia agreed.
Neither intended to obey.
At 2:17 a.m., Mia stole a nurse’s access card.
At 2:26, she disconnected Valeria’s antibiotic pump.
At 2:31, they reached the service elevator.
The doors opened before Mia pressed the button.
Evelyn stood inside.
She looked at the two girls, then at the bag hanging from Valeria’s shoulder.
“You won’t make it past the lobby,” she said.
Valeria tightened her grip on the wheelchair.
“Then help us.”
Evelyn stepped out of the elevator.
For one moment, Valeria thought she would call security.
May you like
Instead, the nurse held up a set of car keys.
“I know a road the police won’t use.”
