Chapter 4 - The Second DisappearanceFor one heartbeat, nobody moved.
None of us did.
Anna Bell Sterling had been declared dead six years earlier after her car went off a mountain road in Vermont.
Her vehicle had burned.
Investigators recovered remains.
There had been a funeral.
William had buried her.
Yet Ethan insisted he had seen the woman in the photograph walking through Sterling House less than twenty-four hours earlier.
“She touched my hair,” he said.
William knelt in front of him.
“Ethan, sweetheart, you never met Anna.”
“She knew my name.”
“Where did you see her?”
“Downstairs.”
“In which room?”
“The one with all the clocks.”
William looked at Detective Kane.
“The old study.”
We went together.
The old study was locked.
William hadn't used it in years.
He explained that the room had belonged to his grandfather, then his father. Antique clocks covered the walls, most of them stopped at different times.
Detective Kane used the brass key found in the hallway.
It fit.
Nobody spoke.
The door opened.
Dust covered nearly everything.
But someone had been there recently.
A clean trail crossed the floor.
One chair had been moved.
And on the desk sat a fresh glass of water.
Detective Kane touched the side.
“Still cold.”
William's face hardened.
“Search the house.”
Security teams spread through the mansion.
I stayed near Ethan.
I knew I should have left.
I had already given my statement.
My catering supervisor was missing.
A billionaire's domestic nightmare had nothing to do with me.
But every time I thought about walking out, I remembered those tiny fingers reaching through the vent.
Please get me out.
I couldn't leave him.
Not yet.
William noticed.
“You can go home if you want.”
“I know.”
“You've already done more for Ethan than anyone had a right to expect.”
I glanced at the little boy curled under a blanket.
“I don't think he wants me to.”
William followed my gaze.
“No.”
Something almost like gratitude appeared in his face.
“He doesn't.”
Detective Kane opened drawers.
The first three were empty.
The fourth contained a cassette recorder.
William stared.
“My father used those.”
Kane pressed PLAY.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman's voice.
Anna.
William recognized it instantly.
He sat down hard.
“If you're hearing this,” the recording said, “then something has happened to me.”
William's face went white.
The tape continued.
“My name is Anna Bell Sterling. I don't know who I can trust anymore. Not William. Not the board. Not even the police.”
William flinched.
“I discovered financial transfers hidden inside Sterling Children's Foundation accounts. Millions of dollars moving through shell companies connected to a private adoption network.”
Detective Kane looked at William.
He shook his head.
“I knew nothing about this.”
Anna continued.
“I thought it was money laundering until I found the birth records.”
My stomach twisted.
“Children are being moved.”
Silence in the tape.
Then Anna started crying.
“They're selling identities.”
Detective Kane stepped closer.
“Jesus.”
“The person responsible is inside the Sterling family.”
The tape clicked.
Everyone held their breath.
Then came Anna's final words.
“If my baby survives, do not let Richard find him.”
The recording ended.
William whispered, “Richard.”
Detective Kane looked at him.
“Who is Richard?”
“My uncle.”
“Where is he?”
William didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, “Downstairs.”
Richard Sterling had returned to the mansion during the police search.
He was sitting in the drawing room, calmly drinking bourbon while officers moved through the hallways.
He was sixty-eight, silver-haired and dignified, wearing a dark suit and a blue sapphire ring.
Ethan saw him through the doorway.
The child screamed.
“That’s him!”
Richard's hand stopped halfway to his glass.
William turned slowly.
His gaze dropped to the ring.
Blue stone.
Large.
“You.”
Richard stood.
“What is this?”
Ethan hid behind me.
I felt his small hands grab my skirt.
“You were here yesterday,” William said.
“It's my family's house.”
“You gave Isabella papers.”
Richard smiled without warmth.
“My lawyer sent her documents involving the foundation.”
“What documents?”
“Board matters.”
“Why did Ethan hear you say another boy was alive?”
For the first time, Richard's expression shifted.
Only slightly.
But Detective Kane saw it.
“So there is another boy,” she said.
Richard looked at her.
“You're making conclusions based on the imagination of a frightened child.”
Detective Kane stepped closer.
“Then help us eliminate those conclusions.”
Richard took a sip of bourbon.
“I have nothing to explain.”
William punched him.
The glass flew across the room.
Richard staggered into a table.
“William!” Kane shouted.
William grabbed his uncle's jacket.
“My wife recorded your name before she died.”
Richard looked directly into his eyes.
“And what exactly did your wife say?”
William froze.
Too late.
He had revealed that we found the tape.
Richard smiled.
“There it is.”
Detective Kane ordered officers to separate them.
Then her radio crackled.
A security team had found something in the basement.
We followed.
Behind a wine rack was another hidden door.
Beyond it was a corridor.
At the end stood a room filled with filing cabinets.
Each drawer contained names.
Birth certificates.
Adoption records.
Medical files.
Photographs of babies.
Hundreds.
Some dated back thirty years.
Detective Kane stared at the cabinets.
“This isn't a family secret.”
“No,” I whispered.
“This is an operation.”
William opened one drawer.
A folder fell out.
The name on it was:
STERLING, DANIEL
He looked confused.
“There is no Daniel Sterling.”
Detective Kane opened the folder.
Inside was a birth certificate.
Mother: Anna Bell Sterling.
Father: William Sterling.
Date of birth: six years earlier.
William's knees nearly gave out.
“My son.”
The baby Anna had supposedly lost in the crash had been born.
Alive.
There was a hospital photograph clipped behind the certificate.
A newborn wrapped in a blue blanket.
William touched the image with trembling fingers.
“My son survived.”
Detective Kane turned the page.
A handwritten note appeared.
PLACEMENT COMPLETED. IDENTITY REASSIGNED.
William's grief transformed into something much colder.
“Where?”
Kane searched.
The next page had been ripped out.
Richard laughed behind us.
We turned.
He stood at the entrance between two officers.
“You won't find him.”
William lunged.
The officers stopped him.
“Where is my son?”
Richard smiled.
“He stopped being your son six years ago.”
Then the lights went out.
Complete darkness swallowed the basement.
A scream echoed behind me.
A gunshot cracked.
May you like
And when the emergency lights flickered back on, Richard Sterling was gone.
So was Ethan.
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