Chapter 4 - The Woman Across the Street
Sarah pounded on the attic door.
“Daniel?”
No answer.
She shouted Ethan’s name, then remembered he was staying at the hospital overnight for observation.
The house was supposed to be empty.
Sarah searched for another exit. The attic window overlooked the backyard, three stories above the ground. There was no safe way down.
Her phone showed one bar of reception.
She called Daniel.
No answer.
She called the police.
The call disconnected before the operator could locate her.
Then she heard movement outside the attic door.
A key entered the lock.
Sarah grabbed a heavy brass candleholder from a storage box and raised it above her shoulder.
The door opened.
An elderly woman stood on the other side.
Sarah recognized her as Margaret Vale, the quiet widow who lived across the street.
Margaret held a screwdriver in one hand.
“Don’t hit me,” she said.
Sarah lowered the candleholder.
“How did you get in?”
“Your back door was open.”
“Someone locked me inside.”
“I know.”
Margaret looked toward the staircase.
“I saw him leave.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
Margaret stepped into the attic and shut the door behind her.
“The man was wearing a gray coat. Tall. White hair.”
Victor Mercer.
Sarah’s heart began pounding.
“You saw his face?”
“I saw enough.”
“Why would Victor Mercer be in my house?”
Margaret looked at the documents spread across the floor.
“You finally started asking questions.”
Sarah tightened her grip on the candleholder.
“What do you know?”
Margaret sat on an old trunk as if her legs had become weak.
“Fourteen years ago, my daughter worked as a nurse at Halcyon Women’s Pavilion.”
Sarah could not speak.
“Her name was Anna Vale,” Margaret continued. “She disappeared three months after the clinic closed.”
“Disappeared?”
“The police said she ran away. Anna would never have left her little girl.”
“Did you tell them about the clinic?”
“They told me the clinic had nothing to do with it.”
Margaret’s voice hardened.
“Men in expensive suits came to my house. They offered money. When I refused, they threatened my granddaughter.”
Sarah sat opposite her.
“Why haven’t you told me this before?”
“I didn’t know who you were when you moved here.”
“You recognized Daniel.”
“Yes.”
The attic seemed to shrink around Sarah.
“From where?”
“Anna kept photographs.”
Margaret reached into her coat and removed a small plastic sleeve.
Inside was a faded picture of several people standing outside a modern medical building.
Sarah recognized Victor Mercer.
A younger Daniel stood beside him.
Daniel was twenty-seven at the time, two years before he claimed to have joined Mercer Biotech.
On Daniel’s other side stood a pregnant woman.
Sarah leaned closer.
The woman looked strangely familiar.
Not because Sarah had seen her before.
Because the shape of her eyes resembled Ethan’s.
“Who is she?” Sarah whispered.
“Her name was Rebecca Sloan.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died.”
Sarah could barely breathe.
“When?”
Margaret met her eyes.
“The night your son was born.”
Sarah stood so quickly that a box fell from the trunk.
“You’re saying she was Ethan’s mother?”
“I’m saying Halcyon did things no legitimate clinic would do.”
“What things?”
“Embryo theft. Illegal surrogacy. Identity changes. Experimental genetic selection. Rich people paid them to make problems disappear.”
Sarah looked down at Ethan’s birth certificate.
“Why would Daniel bring me there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said your daughter kept photographs. Did she write anything?”
Margaret hesitated.
“She kept a journal.”
“Where is it?”
“I had it.”
Sarah heard the past tense.
“What happened to it?”
“Someone broke into my home last week.”
“The same day we received the letter?”
Margaret nodded.
“They took the journal, but they missed one page.”
She handed Sarah a folded piece of paper.
The writing was hurried and faded.
Sarah read the first line.
There were two infant boys in Room 6 tonight. One belongs to Rebecca. The other has no legal mother.
At the bottom of the page, Anna had written:
Daniel says Sarah must never learn which child she took home.
A floorboard creaked below them.
Margaret’s eyes widened.
May you like
The front door closed downstairs.
Someone had entered the house.
