Chapter 10 - THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME
Nobody slept.
Not Adrian.
Not Hannah.
Not Noah.
Not even Margaret Hawthorne, who spent the night in a county holding cell refusing to answer questions.
At six in the morning, Adrian sat in Caroline’s studio with the photograph of the baby in front of him.
A girl.
Tiny.
Wrapped in a yellow blanket.
Hospital bracelet around her wrist.
The bracelet was partially visible.
BABY BLACKWOOD.
No first name.
Noah sat beside him.
“I have a sister?”
Adrian couldn’t answer.
He had never known Caroline was pregnant with another child.
But then he saw the date.
Eight years earlier.
One year before Noah’s birth.
“That’s impossible.”
Hannah looked at him.
“Why?”
“Caroline and I weren’t married yet.”
“That doesn’t make it impossible.”
“No.”
Adrian shook his head.
“We were together.”
He stared at the photograph.
“She would have told me.”
Evelyn sat across from him.
Her face said otherwise.
Adrian noticed.
“Mom.”
She looked down.
“You knew.”
Evelyn sighed.
“I knew something.”
“Tell me.”
“Caroline disappeared for four months before your engagement.”
Adrian remembered.
She claimed she was working in Europe with her foundation.
He visited twice.
She always postponed.
He thought she needed independence.
“You’re saying she had a baby?”
“I believe so.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Noah asked quietly, “Did they put her in Saint Arden?”
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
Hannah picked up the photograph.
On the back was a number.
SA-1147.
Evelyn’s face changed.
“Patient file.”
Detective Torres had returned.
She immediately searched the recovered Saint Arden archive.
File 1147 was missing.
But the ledger contained an entry.
FEMALE INFANT.
TRANSFERRED.
Then a destination code.
M-17.
“What does M mean?” Adrian asked.
Evelyn shook her head.
“I never learned all the codes.”
Torres contacted former Saint Arden employees.
Most refused to talk.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Nurse Rebecca Sloan.
She lived forty miles away.
By eight, police were at her door.
By nine, Rebecca sat in the Blackwood library.
She was sixty-two.
Nervous.
Retired.
When Adrian placed the baby photograph before her, she began crying.
“I knew this day would come.”
Adrian’s heart pounded.
“You remember her?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Her mother named her Sophie.”
Noah whispered, “Sophie.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Where is she?”
Rebecca looked at Evelyn.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
Rebecca wiped her eyes.
“Caroline came to Saint Arden voluntarily.”
Everyone stared.
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was frightened.”
“Of who?”
“Her father.”
Jonathan Hawthorne had discovered Caroline was pregnant before marriage.
But scandal was not the real issue.
Caroline had already started asking questions about unusual foundation payments.
Jonathan threatened her.
He claimed Adrian was not safe.
Neither was the baby.
“So Caroline hid the pregnancy,” Rebecca said.
“She gave birth under another name.”
Adrian looked devastated.
“Why didn’t she call me?”
“She planned to.”
Rebecca’s hands trembled.
“But then something happened.”
“What?”
“The baby disappeared.”
Noah grabbed Adrian’s hand.
Rebecca continued.
“Caroline was told Sophie died.”
Adrian stared at her.
The same lie.
One generation before Noah.
“But Caroline didn’t believe it,” Rebecca said.
“She spent years investigating Saint Arden because of Sophie.”
Hannah understood.
“She wasn’t investigating strangers.”
“No.”
Rebecca looked at Adrian.
“She was looking for her daughter.”
The room went silent.
“Did she find her?”
“Almost.”
Rebecca pointed at the code M-17.
“That was a transfer designation.”
“To where?”
Rebecca whispered:
“Mercer.”
Hannah froze.
“What?”
Everyone looked at her.
Rebecca studied Hannah’s face.
Then suddenly covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
Hannah stepped backward.
“What does Mercer mean?”
Rebecca stared at her.
“Your last name.”
“Yes.”
“Your mother’s name was Diane Mercer?”
Hannah’s blood ran cold.
“Yes.”
Rebecca began crying harder.
“She fostered children.”
Hannah shook her head.
“No. She had my sister and me.”
“Rachel?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca stood.
“Hannah, how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“And Rachel?”
“She would be thirty-one.”
Rebecca looked confused.
“That doesn’t fit.”
Hannah stared.
“What?”
Rebecca looked at the baby photograph.
“Sophie would be eight.”
Noah’s eyes widened.
Adrian frowned.
“What are you saying?”
Rebecca looked at Hannah.
“Did your mother care for any young girl about seven or eight years ago?”
Hannah suddenly remembered.
A child.
A little blond girl who stayed with her mother for three weeks.
Hannah had been twenty.
Her mother said the girl belonged to a cousin who was ill.
Hannah only remembered bits.
Yellow rain boots.
A missing front tooth.
A habit of sleeping with the hallway light on.
Then one morning, the girl was gone.
“Lucy.”
Rebecca stood.
“What?”
“We called her Lucy.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
Hannah’s mother had refused to discuss it.
She died four years later.
Adrian stood.
“Do you have photographs?”
Hannah closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
They drove to Hannah’s apartment.
Nothing about it resembled Blackwood Manor.
Small kitchen.
Secondhand couch.
Family pictures crowded on shelves.
Hannah opened a box from her bedroom.
She found the photograph.
A backyard barbecue.
Her mother.
Hannah at twenty.
And a seven-year-old girl between them wearing yellow rain boots.
Adrian took the picture.
His hand began shaking.
The child had Caroline’s eyes.
Noah looked at it.
“That’s my sister.”
Nobody could prove it yet.
But everyone felt it.
Hannah turned the photograph over.
Her mother had written:
Lucy — June 2018.
Keep her safe until C comes.
C.
Caroline.
Adrian sat on Hannah’s bed.
“She was coming for her.”
Rebecca nodded slowly.
“Caroline may have found Sophie.”
“Then where did she go?”
Hannah searched the box.
Receipts.
School papers.
Old birthday cards.
Then she found an envelope she had never opened.
To Hannah, when the truth comes.
Her mother’s handwriting.
Inside was a letter.
Hannah read.
My dear Hannah,
If you’re reading this, the Blackwoods have finally found the little girl.
Hannah stopped.
Everyone stared.
She continued.
Her mother explained that Caroline contacted her secretly.
Diane Mercer had once worked as a nurse at Saint Arden.
She helped smuggle Sophie out.
But someone discovered the rescue.
Caroline planned to move Sophie to another safe family.
Before she could, Caroline died.
Diane panicked.
She sent Sophie away.
“To whom?” Adrian asked.
Hannah read the final paragraph.
Sophie is living under a different name.
I promised never to write it down.
But there is one person who knows.
Your sister Rachel.
Hannah stared at the words.
“My sister died nineteen years ago.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Hannah looked at her.
Rebecca’s face had gone pale.
“Rachel Mercer didn’t die.”
Hannah dropped the letter.
“What?”
May you like
Rebecca whispered:
“Saint Arden declared her dead.”
