Chapter 6 - What His Father Hid Inside the NurseryBy dawn, Ethan had slept for eleven minutes.
Richard Sloan was handcuffed.
Crane was treated for burns before being placed under armed guard.
Two other men surrendered.
A fifth disappeared into the woods.
Ethan barely noticed.
He could only stare at Claire.
“What second child?”
Noah stood beside her, confused.
Claire’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Ethan felt something inside him fracture.
“Claire.”
“Not here.”
“That man just said I have another child.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
Her eyes filled.
“Please.”
Ethan turned toward Rebecca Shaw.
Rebecca had managed his private security for nine years, beginning as a Secret Service agent before moving into corporate protection.
Unlike the people at Blackwood Manor, she worked directly for Ethan.
That was why he had quietly contacted her from the plane after noticing unexplained security changes in his travel records.
“Take Noah to the helicopter.”
Claire immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“He doesn’t need to hear this.”
Noah clung to Claire.
“I stay with Mommy.”
Those words still felt miraculous and painful.
Claire crouched.
“Honey, go with Ms. Shaw for five minutes.”
“No.”
“Noah.”
“They’ll take you again.”
Claire’s face broke.
Ethan knelt beside him.
“Nobody is taking anyone.”
“You left before.”
“I know.”
“Grandma said you didn’t want me.”
Ethan’s stomach twisted.
“No.”
“She said your work was more important.”
“Noah, look at me.”
The boy did.
“I came home six months early because something felt wrong. I crossed an ocean tonight to get to you. There is nowhere on this earth I would rather be than right here.”
Noah’s lower lip trembled.
“You promise?”
“Forever.”
Noah finally allowed Rebecca to take his hand.
When they were alone, Ethan faced Claire.
“Tell me.”
Claire wrapped both arms around herself.
“When my car went over the ravine, I was pregnant.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“How pregnant?”
“Eight weeks.”
“You knew?”
“I found out the morning before they took me.”
He stared at her.
“You were carrying my baby when you disappeared?”
“Yes.”
He turned away.
The grief was too large to remain still.
For twenty-two months, Ethan believed he had lost Claire.
Now he discovered he had missed a pregnancy.
A birth.
An entire child.
“Boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
His eyes closed.
“What’s her name?”
“Lily.”
The name struck him.
Claire had once told him that if they ever had a daughter, she wanted to name her after her grandmother.
Lillian.
“Where is she?”
Claire started crying.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan turned.
“What do you mean?”
“They took her.”
“When?”
“She was fourteen months old.”
His entire body went cold.
Claire told him everything.
After escaping the car wreck, she had hidden under the name Anna Reed.
She moved between Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia.
She never used a credit card.
Never entered a hospital under her real identity.
When labor began, an elderly midwife delivered Lily in an isolated farmhouse outside Charlottesville.
For fourteen months, Claire stayed invisible.
Then she made one mistake.
She contacted Helen Pierce, Blackwood Aerospace’s general counsel.
Ethan frowned.
“Helen?”
“I thought she was safe.”
“Isn’t she?”
“I still don’t know.”
Claire had mailed Helen a copy of the financial records.
Three days later, someone found the farmhouse.
Claire returned from a grocery trip to find the midwife unconscious.
Lily gone.
A phone waited on the kitchen table.
Victoria called.
“She told me if I approached the police, you would receive Lily’s body in a box.”
Ethan leaned against the wall.
His knees felt unreliable.
“She had my daughter for eight months?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you came back to Blackwood Manor because—”
“Because Victoria promised I could see Lily.”
Ethan stared.
Claire continued.
“She said if I worked inside the house, stayed quiet, and found your father’s missing archive, Lily would remain alive.”
“And you believed her?”
“I had no choice!”
Her voice cracked.
“I had already lost you. Noah was trapped here. Lily was somewhere I couldn’t find. Every person who tried to help me ended up threatened or dead.”
She covered her face.
“I was trying to keep our children alive.”
Ethan’s anger vanished.
He crossed the room and pulled her against him.
Claire resisted for one second.
Then collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I should have trusted you.”
“No.”
“I should have found a way.”
“Claire.”
He held her face.
“You survived men trying to kill you, gave birth while hiding, kept Lily alive for fourteen months, then walked back into the house where the people hunting you lived because it gave you a chance to protect Noah.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“You don’t apologize to me.”
“But Lily—”
“We find her.”
“What if—”
“We find her.”
Ethan refused to say anything else.
Because the alternative could not exist.
Rebecca returned.
“We need to move.”
“Where?”
“Federal safe house.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“My daughter is missing.”
Rebecca stared.
“What?”
Claire explained quickly.
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“I’ll notify the task force.”
“No broad alert,” Ethan said.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know who Sloan owns.”
Rebecca didn’t argue.
That was another reason Ethan trusted her.
“Where’s Victoria?” he asked.
“Still at the estate.”
“And Lucas?”
“Also there.”
“Harlan?”
“Gone.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“The psychiatrist disappeared?”
“Her car left twelve minutes before our team arrived.”
“Then she knew.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Probably.”
“What about Sloan’s phone?”
“Bagged as evidence.”
“I need it.”
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“That is federal evidence.”
“My daughter may be at the other end of one of those contacts.”
“And contaminating evidence could destroy a prosecution.”
Ethan stepped closer.
“Find another way.”
Rebecca studied him.
“I’ll ask the lead agent to expedite extraction.”
They boarded the helicopter.
Noah immediately crawled into Ethan’s lap.
Claire sat beside him.
For the first time in almost two years, the three of them were together.
It should have felt like a miracle.
Instead there was an empty seat.
Lily.
Ethan looked down as the helicopter rose over the Hudson.
Blackwood Manor glowed beneath them.
Police vehicles filled the driveway.
Then Ethan noticed movement near the trees.
Someone stood beyond the police perimeter.
A woman.
Red hair.
Dr. Harlan.
She watched the helicopter.
Then raised one hand to her ear.
Phone.
Ethan pointed.
“There!”
Rebecca looked.
Too late.
Harlan disappeared among the trees.
Seconds later, Claire’s apron began vibrating.
She frowned.
Then reached into a hidden pocket.
A phone.
Not hers.
She pulled it out.
The screen displayed an incoming video call.
UNKNOWN.
Claire went pale.
“She put this in my apron.”
“Answer.”
Claire accepted.
The screen remained black.
Then a child appeared.
Curly dark hair.
Gray-green eyes.
Sitting in a small white bed.
Claire made a sound that tore through Ethan.
“Lily.”
The little girl looked toward the camera.
“Mama?”
Ethan forgot everything around him.
His daughter.
Alive.
Lily touched the screen.
“Mama come?”
Claire sobbed.
“I’m coming, sweetheart.”
A hand entered the frame.
A woman’s hand.
Dr. Harlan’s voice followed.
“Mr. Blackwood.”
Ethan took the phone.
“You touch my daughter—”
“I haven’t harmed her.”
“Where are you?”
“That depends on you.”
“What do you want?”
“Richard Sloan released.”
“That isn’t within my control.”
“Then make it within your control.”
Ethan’s eyes hardened.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
Harlan laughed softly.
“I think tonight proved exactly who you are. Emotional. Predictable. Family first.”
Lily looked frightened.
“Mama?”
Claire reached for the phone.
“Harlan, please.”
“Tomorrow at noon, you will bring the original archive.”
Claire froze.
“We don’t have it.”
“Find it.”
“Where?”
“Ask Ethan’s father.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes.”
The screen shifted.
Behind Lily was a wall.
Painted pale yellow.
A small window.
And through that window Ethan saw something.
A lighthouse.
Red-and-white striped.
Rebecca saw it too.
She immediately grabbed a tablet.
Harlan continued.
“Tomorrow. Noon.”
Ethan watched the lighthouse.
He knew it.
“Montauk.”
Harlan went silent.
Ethan smiled.
“You should have closed the curtains.”
The video ended.
Rebecca looked at Ethan.
“There are several lighthouses near Montauk.”
“No.”
Ethan handed her the phone.
“That isn’t Montauk Point.”
Claire stared at him.
“Then where?”
“My father owned a private island off Connecticut when I was a kid.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Blackwood Island was sold twenty years ago.”
Ethan shook his head.
“Publicly.”
He remembered something his father once said.
Never sell the place nobody remembers you own.
“The sale went to a shell company.”
Claire whispered, “Meridian?”
Ethan looked at her.
Blackwood Meridian Holdings.
The hidden company on Claire’s paper.
The same company receiving stolen funds.
His father hadn’t merely discovered the conspiracy.
He had built something inside it.
A trap.
Ethan looked at Rebecca.
“Find everything on Blackwood Island.”
She opened her laptop.
“What are we looking for?”
Ethan thought about Harlan’s words.
Ask Ethan’s father.
Then he remembered the old lighthouse.
A room beneath it where his father used to store sailing charts.
“The archive.”
Claire looked at him.
“You think it’s there?”
“No.”
Ethan stared down at the dark coastline.
“I think my father wanted them to believe it was.”
May you like
And if he was right, the real archive was somewhere no one had thought to search.
Somewhere inside Blackwood Manor.
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