Chapter 11 - The Mother in the Locked Ward
Thomas survived.
The bullet struck his shoulder and missed the artery. The technician called an ambulance while Elaine pressed cloth against the wound.
Thomas gripped her wrist.
“Do not go to the hospital.”
“Marian may be there.”
“That message may be from Brandon.”
“Or Sarah.”
“Neither can be trusted.”
Elaine looked at Sophie.
She stood near the broken window, staring at the note pinned to her sleeve.
“I have to go,” Sophie said.
“No,” Elaine replied.
“She may be my mother.”
“And Brandon may be waiting to kill you.”
“If the trust activates tomorrow, he cannot risk leaving me alive.”
Thomas closed his eyes in pain.
“The police can enter the facility.”
“The same police who believed Brandon’s report?” Sophie asked.
“We have new evidence.”
“The evidence was stolen from the computer.”
“The original microfilm is still here.”
The technician checked the machine.
The strip had disappeared.
Sarah had taken it during the darkness.
Thomas cursed.
Elaine made a decision.
“We need evidence Brandon cannot erase.”
She remembered the hidden room and Richard’s tape.
Brandon had taken one cassette, but Richard’s confession suggested there might be others.
“Richard said Sophie had been abandoned by us,” Elaine said. “He was speaking to me, but he expected someone to find that room. There may be another recording.”
Thomas nodded weakly.
“Richard often duplicated important evidence.”
“Where?”
“He trusted physical hiding places more than banks.”
Sophie looked at the photograph of the two newborns.
“The cradle.”
They returned to the Hawthorne medical suite while Thomas underwent surgery.
Police had sealed the main corridor, but Maya met them through the service entrance.
She had left the private medical center after Brandon accused her of assisting Elaine’s escape.
“The restricted ward is under lockdown,” Maya said. “Leonard moved one long-term patient this morning.”
“Marian,” Sophie said.
“Her chart lists the name Anna Bell.”
“Where was she moved?”
“No destination appears in the system.”
Elaine showed Maya the note.
Before midnight.
“We have to assume they still have her nearby,” Maya said.
They searched the broken music box and cradle.
Beneath the cradle mattress, Elaine found a small brass plate engraved with a sequence of piano notes.
She recognized the melody.
It was not from the Chopin piece.
It was a lullaby Richard hummed during Brandon’s childhood.
Elaine played the notes on an old keyboard stored in the recital room.
A panel beneath the piano released.
Inside was a cassette and a sealed medical vial.
The label read:
S.H. November 9, 1991.
Maya held it to the light.
“This may be the original blood sample.”
Sophie stared at it.
“Can we test it?”
“Yes, but we need a secure laboratory.”
Elaine inserted the cassette into an old tape deck.
Richard’s voice began.
“Margaret brought the child to me because Marian had been taken by Lawrence’s security team. Margaret believed the twins were in danger. She switched their names to confuse anyone searching for the controlling heir.”
He paused.
“Brandon discovered the child in the hidden room. Vanessa was with him.”
Elaine stopped the tape.
“Vanessa was eleven too.”
“She knew Sophie before adulthood,” Maya said.
Elaine pressed play.
“Vanessa told Brandon that Sophie would take his inheritance. She had heard her mother discussing the trust. Brandon locked the door after Sarah started the fire. Vanessa removed the original blood sample.”
Sophie looked at the vial.
“If Vanessa removed it, why is it here?”
Richard continued.
“I recovered the sample from Vanessa’s bag but told her I had not. From that day, the Vale family believed they controlled the evidence.”
Elaine felt sick.
Richard had known two children attempted to harm another child, yet he buried it.
“I sent Sophie away with Margaret. I told Elaine nothing. That silence became the first of many betrayals.”
The recording shifted.
A woman’s voice appeared.
Weak.
Frightened.
“My name is Marian Hale. Lawrence Vale is the father of my daughters. The child called Sophie has the hereditary condition. The child called Sarah does not.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
The tape continued.
“If Sophie reaches thirty-five, she must be told that the trust is not merely money. It contains evidence of crimes committed by Vale Medical Holdings. The company used illegal trials on patients who were never informed.”
Maya stepped closer to the machine.
“My hospital belongs to Vale Medical.”
Marian’s voice trembled.
“Lawrence wanted the evidence preserved as leverage against his own board. Leonard knows where it is. Vanessa knows what it could destroy. Richard promised to protect my daughters, but he is afraid.”
A loud noise sounded on the recording.
Marian whispered urgently.
“If I disappear, look beneath the west wing chapel.”
The tape ended.
Maya looked at Elaine.
“The private center has a chapel.”
They entered the medical facility shortly before eleven using Maya’s old access badge.
Most staff had been moved away from the west wing because of a supposed electrical problem.
The chapel was empty.
Behind the altar, they found a staircase leading beneath the building.
The lower level contained medical storage rooms not shown on the facility map.
Patient files lined the walls.
Names.
Dates.
Trial numbers.
Some went back thirty years.
Sophie found a room at the end of the corridor.
A woman lay in a hospital bed connected to an IV.
Her auburn hair had turned almost completely white.
Sophie approached slowly.
“Marian?”
The woman opened her eyes.
She looked first at Sophie.
Then at Elaine.
Her lips moved.
“Richard’s wife.”
Elaine leaned closer.
“We are getting you out.”
Marian gripped her hand with surprising strength.
“No. The trust activates at midnight.”
“We know.”
“You do not know what Brandon changed.”
The basement door slammed above them.
Footsteps descended the stairs.
Marian looked toward Sophie.
“He does not need to kill you.”
“What does he need?” Elaine asked.
May you like
Marian’s eyes filled with terror.
“Only your eyes.”
