Chapter 12 - Sybil Comes Home)
Sybil returned forty eight hours later.
Not because police found her.
Because Winnie did.
At nine in the evening, Winnie was sitting beside the living room window when she noticed a shadow beyond the garden hedge.
She did not scream.
She quietly walked to Daniel.
"Dad."
He was on the phone with Brooks.
"One second."
"Dad."
Something in her voice made him turn.
"Sybil is outside."
Daniel stood.
Officers had been stationed at the house since the attic rescue.
Within seconds the back garden lights came on.
Two officers moved through the side door.
Daniel stayed inside with Winnie and Eleanor.
Then a voice came from the front porch.
"Daniel."
Sybil.
He opened the inner door but left the locked glass storm door between them.
Sybil looked exhausted.
Her ivory blouse was gone.
She wore jeans and a dark jacket.
No makeup.
A cut marked one side of her forehead.
Daniel said nothing.
"I need to come in."
"Police are here."
"I know."
"Then put your hands where they can see them."
She did.
Officers approached behind her.
Sybil did not resist.
Before they took her away, she looked through the glass at Winnie.
"I am sorry."
Winnie hid behind Daniel.
Sybil's face broke.
Daniel closed the door.
At the police station, Sybil requested to speak to Daniel.
Brooks advised against it.
Daniel went anyway.
Sybil sat behind a metal table.
Her wrists were restrained.
Daniel remained standing.
"You locked my mother in an attic."
"Yes."
"You drugged her."
"Yes."
"You lied to me every day."
"Yes."
"You used someone to fake her voice."
Sybil looked ashamed.
"Yes."
Daniel stared at her.
"I need to hear you say something without an excuse."
She looked up.
"What?"
"That it was wrong."
Sybil's eyes filled.
"It was wrong."
"You thought you were protecting her."
"I told myself that."
"But?"
"I was protecting myself too."
Daniel sat down.
That was the first honest answer she had given him.
"Where were you?"
"Trying to find Vale."
"Did you?"
"No."
"Why come back?"
"He contacted me."
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"What did he say?"
Sybil looked toward the observation window.
"That Winnie opened the wrong door."
Daniel felt cold.
"What does that mean?"
"I do not know."
"Do not lie."
"I am not."
"Why is Winnie in those records?"
Sybil closed her eyes.
"Rebecca never told me everything."
"What did she tell you?"
"That Vale's organization targeted families with certain medical histories."
"For what?"
"I thought adoption fraud."
"And now?"
"I think it was something else."
Daniel waited.
Sybil leaned closer.
"Have you ever wondered why the Hale Foundation funded fertility research for thirty years even though no one in your family talked about it?"
Daniel frowned.
"My grandfather donated to hundreds of medical causes."
"Not like this."
"What are you saying?"
"Thomas Hale created a private fertility research grant in 1987."
"My father?"
"No. Your grandfather."
Daniel tried to remember.
He knew almost nothing about that part of the foundation.
Sybil continued.
"Vale managed records from those grants."
"What records?"
"Donor records. Embryo records. Family genetic histories."
Daniel felt sick.
"Winnie was conceived naturally."
"I know."
"Then why would they care about her?"
"Because of Rebecca."
Daniel stared.
"What about Rebecca?"
Sybil hesitated.
This time the hesitation looked like fear.
"Rebecca was adopted."
Daniel almost laughed.
"That is impossible."
"Did she ever show you her birth certificate?"
"Yes."
"Original?"
Daniel did not answer.
Sybil continued.
"Rebecca discovered her adoption while investigating the foundation."
"You expect me to believe my wife did not know who her parents were?"
"She knew the people who raised her."
"Her parents."
"They were her parents. But not biologically."
Daniel remembered Rebecca rarely discussed her infancy.
Her parents died before Winnie was born.
No siblings.
No close extended family.
"Proof."
"In the blue case."
"Police found it."
"Not everything."
"What is missing?"
"A red folder."
"Where is it?"
Sybil looked directly at him.
"I gave it to Eleanor."
Daniel stood.
"When?"
"The day I locked her upstairs."
"Why?"
"Because I changed my mind."
"About what?"
Sybil's voice broke.
"About giving it to Vale."
Daniel pressed both hands against the table.
"What was inside?"
"Rebecca's real birth record."
"Where is it now?"
"I do not know. Eleanor hid it before the sedative fully affected her."
Daniel remembered Eleanor's brass key.
The glasses.
The notebook.
The attic.
"Why did Vale want it?"
"Because it proves Rebecca was one of them."
"One of who?"
Sybil shook her head.
"I never learned what they called themselves."
Daniel leaned forward.
"Try."
Sybil swallowed.
"Children from the first program."
Daniel stared at her.
"What program?"
"Project Haven."
Brooks entered the room without knocking.
His face told Daniel something had happened.
"What?"
Brooks placed a photograph on the table.
It showed a red folder.
Burned around the edges.
Found in a trash barrel behind a church two miles away.
Sybil stared.
"That is it."
"Empty," Brooks said.
Daniel looked at him.
"Who burned it?"
"We checked traffic cameras."
Brooks placed another photograph beside it.
A dark sedan.
The driver was unclear.
But the passenger's face was visible.
Eleanor.
Daniel stood so quickly his chair fell.
"No."
Brooks spoke carefully.
"The timestamp is from two days before Sybil locked her in the attic."
Daniel looked at Sybil.
She seemed genuinely shocked.
Brooks continued.
"Your mother did not simply hide the folder."
Daniel could hardly speak.
"What did she do?"
"She met someone."
"Who?"
Brooks slid the final image across the table.
A silver haired man stepped from the sedan beside Eleanor.
May you like
A faint scar crossed his left temple.
Adrian Vale.
