Chapter 8 - The Father of the TwinsEmily refused to answer immediately.
Two state troopers stood outside her room.
An FBI agent guarded the elevator.
It should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
At 11:26 p.m., the fire alarm activated.
Smoke began pouring from a utility room on the fifth floor.
Automatic doors unlocked.
Patients were moved.
Security became chaos.
Caleb arrived seven minutes later.
Emily’s room was empty.
One trooper lay unconscious in the stairwell.
The second had disappeared.
Lila and Lucas were safe because they had already been transferred to another secured wing.
Emily was gone again.
A surveillance camera captured her being pushed through a maintenance exit in a laundry cart.
The person pushing it wore a firefighter’s coat.
The missing trooper’s radio was found beside the loading dock.
Mara slammed her fist against a wall.
“Inside help.”
Again.
They searched personnel records.
The unconscious trooper was clean.
The missing officer, Dean Wallace, had been with state police eight years.
His financial history showed recent deposits.
$30,000.
$25,000.
$40,000.
Paid through a consulting company connected to Victoria.
Caleb wanted to chase him immediately.
Mara stopped him.
“We do this intelligently.”
“She has Emily.”
“And if you run angry, she’ll have you too.”
They accessed Conrad’s vault.
Inside were ledgers.
Photographs.
DNA reports.
Fake death certificates.
And a map.
Across Missouri and neighboring states were eleven houses marked with numbers.
Most were legitimate foster or adoptive homes.
Three were not registered to any child-service organization.
One location appeared repeatedly in Victoria’s notes:
Haven House.
An isolated estate outside Blackwater Ridge.
Conrad recognized it.
“My wife’s family owned it.”
“What is it used for?” Mara asked.
He looked ashamed.
“Temporary housing.”
“For stolen babies?”
“And mothers.”
Emily had uncovered the site months earlier.
She believed women who resisted were kept there until documents could be forged.
Caleb and Mara assembled a tactical team.
They approached Haven House through a forest road shortly before 2 a.m.
The estate looked peaceful.
White siding.
Wide porch.
Children’s swing set.
The place could have appeared in a parenting magazine.
Inside, police discovered a hidden locked wing.
Six bedrooms.
Medical equipment.
Infant supplies.
And three frightened young women.
One was seventeen.
Another twenty-one.
The third had given birth four days earlier.
Her baby was missing.
None were Emily.
A caretaker surrendered.
She said Victoria had visited less than an hour earlier.
“Where did she take Emily?”
The woman shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Caleb noticed muddy tire prints leaving the property.
They followed the road toward an old quarry.
At its end stood an abandoned ambulance.
Inside was Dean Wallace.
Dead?
Caleb checked.
Alive.
Barely conscious.
Victoria had betrayed him too.
Wallace whispered:
“Airport.”
“What airport?”
“Old Whitmore airstrip.”
Conrad owned a private rural runway twenty miles west.
Federal teams moved.
Caleb drove faster than he ever had off-duty.
As they approached, they saw runway lights.
A private jet waited with engines running.
A black SUV raced toward it.
Police vehicles blocked the entrance.
The SUV swerved.
Crash.
Passenger door opened.
Victoria Whitmore stepped out holding a gun.
Her other arm locked around Emily Carter’s neck.
“Back away!”
Officers spread out.
Emily looked exhausted.
But conscious.
Caleb raised his weapon.
“Victoria.”
“You.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“The heroic trooper.”
“This is over.”
“No. People like me decide when things are over.”
“You dumped newborn babies in a trash bag.”
“Evelyn did that.”
“On your orders.”
Victoria smiled without warmth.
“They were evidence.”
Emily shouted, “She killed mothers!”
Victoria struck her.
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“You’re surrounded.”
“I have a plane.”
“You have nowhere to fly.”
Victoria looked toward the jet.
Then toward Caleb.
“Your daughter survived, didn’t she?”
Caleb froze.
She smiled.
“You should thank me.”
“You stole her.”
“I gave her a better life.”
“You don’t get to decide whose children deserve which parents.”
Victoria’s expression changed.
For the first time, anger broke through her calm.
“You have no idea how many desperate families begged me for children.”
“You sold people.”
“I created families.”
“You destroyed them.”
Victoria pressed the gun against Emily.
“Move the vehicles.”
“No.”
“I’ll kill her.”
Emily suddenly looked directly at Caleb.
Not terrified.
Focused.
She shifted one foot backward.
Caleb understood.
“Emily, don’t.”
She moved anyway.
She drove her heel into Victoria’s knee.
Victoria screamed.
The gun swung away.
Caleb fired.
The bullet struck Victoria’s shoulder.
She fell.
Agents rushed forward.
Emily collapsed into Caleb’s arms.
“It’s okay,” he told her.
Victoria lay bleeding but alive.
Handcuffs clicked around her wrists.
For the first time, the woman who had controlled frightened mothers from behind hospital doors had nowhere left to run.
But as paramedics loaded her into an ambulance, Victoria laughed.
Mara leaned close.
“What’s funny?”
Victoria looked at her.
“You think arresting me ends it?”
“Doesn’t it?”
“There are records you haven’t found.”
“What records?”
Victoria smiled.
“Ask Emily why her babies were worth more than all the others.”
Caleb turned toward Emily.
May you like
Her face had gone completely pale.
And he knew the nightmare still had one secret left.
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