Chapter 5 - Midnight at HawthorneAt 11:31 p.m., William received another photograph.
Then William roared his son's name.
“ETHAN!”
I looked down.
The child who had been holding my hand seconds earlier was gone.
Detective Kane drew her weapon.
“Lock down the property!”
Security guards ran toward the exits.
William tore through the basement corridor.
“Ethan!”
I followed.
Someone had planned the blackout perfectly.
The security system was offline for exactly forty-three seconds.
Long enough to open the concealed servant passage behind the records room.
Long enough to move Richard.
Long enough to take Ethan.
But not long enough to disappear without leaving something behind.
A dinosaur sticker.
Ethan had been wearing them on his pajamas.
I found one near a narrow staircase.
“William!”
He came running.
I pointed.
Another sticker waited three steps higher.
Then another.
Ethan was leaving a trail.
“Smart kid,” Kane said.
We climbed.
The passage ended behind the library fireplace.
The final sticker had been pressed onto the floor beside a service door.
Outside, tire marks cut across the wet lawn.
A black SUV had gone through the east gate.
William's security chief, Aaron Cole, ran toward us.
“The gate camera was disabled.”
“Which vehicle?” William demanded.
“We don't know.”
“How many black SUVs do we own?”
“Seven.”
“Track every one.”
“Already doing it.”
Detective Kane called for state police.
William stood in the rain, fists clenched.
I could see him fighting panic.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone went silent.
William answered.
“Where is my son?”
Richard's voice came through the speaker.
“Which one?”
William looked like he'd been stabbed.
“You touch Ethan—”
“You've spent six years mourning a boy you never knew existed. Don't make me bury another.”
“What do you want?”
“The records.”
Kane shook her head silently.
Richard continued.
“Burn them.”
“No.”
“Then Ethan disappears permanently.”
William looked toward the basement.
His face twisted.
I understood immediately.
He would do it.
He would burn every piece of evidence if it meant saving Ethan.
I stepped closer.
“Ask for proof.”
William looked at me.
Then into the phone.
“Let me hear him.”
Silence.
“Richard.”
A muffled sound.
Then Ethan.
“Daddy?”
William closed his eyes.
“I'm here.”
“I'm scared.”
“I know. Listen to me. You're coming home.”
Richard returned.
“Midnight. Old Hawthorne station. Bring the files. Come alone.”
The call ended.
Kane immediately began giving orders.
“We track the phone. We cover the station. Nobody destroys anything.”
William looked at her.
“If he sees police—”
“We do this correctly.”
“I am not gambling with my son.”
“And Richard is counting on that.”
I remembered the records.
Hundreds of children.
Hundreds of families.
If William surrendered the evidence, the whole network might vanish.
But Ethan was five.
No father could be expected to sacrifice his child for strangers.
I wouldn't.
We needed another solution.
“Melanie,” I said.
Kane turned.
“What?”
“My supervisor disappeared before Richard escaped.”
William frowned.
“You think she helped him?”
“I think she sent me upstairs.”
Everyone went silent.
I continued.
“She specifically told me to deliver champagne near the hidden room. Nobody was waiting there. What if she wanted me to find Ethan?”
Kane's expression changed.
“Then she may not be working for Richard.”
“Or she's playing both sides,” Cole said.
I remembered Melanie's face before I carried that tray.
She had looked nervous.
She'd touched my arm and said, Take your time upstairs.
At the time I thought she meant don't spill the champagne.
Now I wasn't sure.
“Find her,” Kane ordered.
They found Melanie's phone twenty minutes later.
Not Melanie.
The phone had been shoved beneath a catering truck.
It contained one unsent message.
To me.
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS, CHECK YOUR APRON.
I stared at the words.
My apron.
I was still wearing it.
Hands trembling, I reached into the front pocket.
Nothing.
Then the smaller inner pocket.
My fingers touched paper.
A folded receipt.
On the back was an address.
214 Harbor Street.
Below it:
ANNA LIVES.
William stared at the message.
“We go now.”
Kane objected.
“We don't know what this is.”
“It might lead to my son.”
“It might be a trap.”
William looked at me.
“Why give Grace the address?”
“Because nobody notices the server,” I said.
That was the truth of jobs like mine.
Rich people spoke secrets around us constantly.
They forgot we existed.
Melanie had used that invisibility.
An unmarked police car took us downtown.
214 Harbor Street turned out to be an abandoned laundromat.
Windows boarded.
Sign faded.
Door unlocked.
Detective Kane entered first.
I followed behind William.
“Melanie?” I called.
No response.
A light glowed beneath a door in the back.
Kane opened it.
A woman sat at a table.
She had dark hair streaked with gray and a long scar along her jaw.
William stopped.
The woman looked up.
For a second neither of them breathed.
“Anna?”
She began crying.
William crossed the room.
His hands shook as though he wanted to touch her but was afraid she would disappear.
“You died.”
“No.”
“You died.”
“They made you believe I did.”
He stared at her.
“Where is our son?”
Anna's face crumpled.
“I've been trying to find him for six years.”
William stepped away as if the answer hurt physically.
“Richard took him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I discovered the network.”
She looked at me.
“You found Ethan.”
“How do you know?”
“Melanie told me.”
“Where is she?”
Anna's eyes filled with fear.
“She was supposed to meet me two hours ago.”
Kane leaned forward.
“Who is Melanie?”
“My sister.”
That surprised all of us.
Anna explained quickly.
Six years earlier, Richard had discovered she was collecting evidence about illegal adoption transfers hidden through Sterling charitable foundations.
He arranged the crash.
Anna survived.
Her newborn son survived.
But Richard's people took the baby before she regained consciousness.
Anna disappeared because Richard threatened to kill William next.
“So you let your husband think you were dead?” Kane asked.
“I thought I was saving him.”
William laughed bitterly.
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
Anna cried.
“I know.”
“And you never came back?”
“I came back three times.”
He stared.
“Richard caught me twice. The third time Isabella found me.”
William froze.
“Isabella knew?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
William looked destroyed.
Anna continued.
“At first Isabella helped me. She believed Richard was using the foundation for financial crimes.”
“What changed?”
“She discovered something about Ethan.”
William's expression tightened.
“What?”
Anna looked toward me.
Then back at him.
“Ethan isn't Isabella's biological son.”
The room became completely silent.
William whispered, “What?”
“She didn't give birth to him.”
“That’s impossible. I was at the hospital.”
“You were outside the operating room after she supposedly had an emergency C-section.”
Anna slid a document across the table.
It was a DNA report.
Isabella Sterling: no maternal relationship.
William Sterling: biological father.
William stared at it.
“If Ethan isn't Isabella's…”
Anna nodded.
“He's ours.”
The air left the room.
“What?”
“Richard took our newborn son six years ago.”
Anna was crying openly now.
“He didn't sell him.”
William sank into the chair.
“He gave him to Isabella.”
Ethan.
The five-year-old child William had been raising with his second wife.
The boy he thought had been born after Anna died.
The boy trapped inside the wall.
Was the baby he'd mourned all along.
Then Detective Kane's phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She listened.
“When?”
She ended the call.
“They found Melanie.”
Anna stood.
“Where?”
Kane hesitated.
“St. Vincent Hospital.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Anna exhaled.
“Barely.”
Kane looked at William.
“She regained consciousness for thirty seconds.”
“What did she say?”
“One sentence.”
Kane's eyes moved toward the clock.
“Don't go to Hawthorne station.”
William checked the time.
11:24 p.m.
“Why?”
May you like
Kane answered.
“Because Ethan isn't there.”
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