Chapter 5 - The Price of a Child
The police treated the hidden cameras seriously.
They treated the note as ambiguous.
Detective Laura Bennett arrived shortly after midnight. She was a composed woman in her early forties with tired eyes and a voice that made every question sound more important than it first appeared.
“Who paid for whom?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” Emily said.
“Could Margaret be referring to Ethan?”
“Possibly.”
“Or Noah?”
Emily looked toward the staircase.
“That’s what frightens me.”
Ethan gave the detective the copied life insurance application and the edited custody documents. Without the missing hard drives, however, much of the evidence was circumstantial.
“Your mother’s attorney will claim the devices were installed for home security,” Detective Bennett said.
“In our bedroom?”
“It won’t be a good argument, but people make bad arguments every day.”
“She forged my signature.”
“That can be investigated.”
“She planned to take my son to Argentina.”
“Do you have the actual tickets?”
“Only a screenshot.”
Bennett studied him.
“Mr. Hale, do you have access to your son’s passport?”
Ethan’s face changed.
He ran upstairs.
Noah’s passport was gone.
The detective immediately issued an alert, but Margaret had already disappeared.
Airports, train stations, and bus terminals were notified.
At two in the morning, an officer found Margaret’s car abandoned near the river.
The driver’s door was unlocked.
Her phone lay on the front seat.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
No body was found.
By sunrise, the investigation had shifted.
Margaret was no longer merely a suspect.
She might be a victim.
Ethan stood near the river while divers searched the dark water.
Emily held his arm.
He had not spoken for twenty minutes.
“You don’t think she jumped,” Emily said.
“No.”
“Why?”
“She wants control too much.”
A police officer approached carrying a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a gold necklace.
Ethan recognized it immediately.
Margaret had worn it every day since his childhood.
The officer asked, “Is this hers?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what the pendant means?”
Ethan examined it.
The pendant was shaped like a small key.
“I thought it was decorative.”
The officer turned it over.
A number had been engraved on the back.
317.
That afternoon, Claire visited the house.
Detective Bennett had instructed Emily not to meet her alone, so Claire sat in the kitchen while Ethan remained nearby.
When Emily showed her the necklace, Claire went pale.
“Anna had one just like it.”
“What did it open?”
“A locker at St. Catherine’s.”
“The hospital was demolished twenty years ago.”
“The maternity building was demolished. The administrative wing became a private rehabilitation clinic.”
Ethan placed the pendant on the table.
“Locker 317 might still exist.”
Claire nodded.
Detective Bennett agreed to accompany them.
The old hospital stood at the edge of the city behind a rusted iron fence. Most of its windows had been replaced, but the stone façade still carried the faded outline of the St. Catherine’s name.
The clinic administrator led them into the basement.
Hundreds of narrow metal lockers lined the corridor.
Many had been sealed for decades.
Locker 317 stood behind a stack of unused chairs.
The key fit.
Inside were three items.
A hospital bracelet bearing Ethan’s birth date.
A ledger wrapped in plastic.
A small wooden music box.
Detective Bennett opened the ledger.
The pages contained names, dates, medical record numbers, and payments.
Not one child.
Dozens.
Over fourteen years, pregnant women had entered St. Catherine’s under false names. Some were listed as having delivered stillborn babies. Others supposedly abandoned their newborns.
Beside each case was the name of a wealthy couple.
Payments ranged from fifty thousand to half a million dollars.
Claire gripped the edge of the locker.
“This wasn’t only about Ethan.”
“It was a trafficking operation,” Bennett said.
Ethan stared at the ledger.
Near the middle of the book, he found Anna Mercer’s name.
Beside it was a payment.
One hundred thousand dollars.
The buyer was not Margaret.
The buyer column contained only initials.
V.L.
Ethan looked at Emily.
“Who is V.L.?”
Claire stepped back.
“I don’t know.”
Detective Bennett noticed her reaction.
“You do know.”
“No.”
“Ms. Mercer.”
Claire’s eyes moved toward the exit.
Before anyone could stop her, she ran.
Bennett followed.
Emily remained with Ethan.
The music box sat open on the shelf.
Inside was a tiny silver ballerina.
Emily turned the key.
A melody began to play.
Then they heard a mechanical click.
A hidden compartment opened beneath the velvet lining.
Inside was a memory card.
Ethan removed it.
May you like
On the card, someone had written one word.
NOAH.
