Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Lied for Nineteen Years
By the time Kate reached Saint Vincent's, her mother's hospital room was empty.
The bed had been stripped.
The monitors were disconnected.
A nurse stood near the doorway, looking confused.
"Mrs. Bennett was transferred twenty minutes ago."
Kate grabbed the doorframe.
"Transferred where?"
The nurse checked her computer.
"There's no destination listed."
Damon stepped forward.
"Who authorized it?"
The nurse hesitated.
"A physician named Dr. Harold Mercer."
Dr. Reyes, standing beside Kate, frowned.
"There's no Harold Mercer on the hospital staff."
Matteo immediately reached for his phone.
Kate felt the blood drain from her face.
"They took her."
Damon turned toward her.
"Kate—"
"They took my mother because of me."
"No."
Her voice rose.
"Because I told you what Preston did!"
Damon didn't argue.
Instead, he said, "We're going to find her."
Kate looked into his eyes.
"You promised I could choose what happened next."
"I did."
"Then I'm coming with you."
Damon hesitated.
"You just had surgery."
"And she's my mother."
Something shifted in his expression.
"All right."
Their first lead came from a traffic camera outside the hospital.
A white medical transport van had left through the rear entrance.
Its license plates belonged to a company that had dissolved six years earlier.
Matteo traced the van to a warehouse near the river.
Inside, they found an abandoned wheelchair, medical supplies, and a torn piece of paper.
On it was an address.
Kate recognized it immediately.
"That's our old house."
Damon looked at her.
"Where you lived as a child?"
She nodded.
"Before Dad died."
They drove there under a moonless sky.
The house stood at the end of a quiet street, its windows boarded and its garden overgrown.
Kate hadn't seen it in nineteen years.
Inside, dust covered the furniture.
Everything smelled of damp wood and forgotten memories.
In the kitchen, she found a familiar height chart scratched into the doorframe.
KATE — AGE SIX.
Her throat tightened.
Damon stayed near the entrance, giving her space.
Then Kate noticed something strange.
A section of the floor beneath the refrigerator had been replaced.
She knelt.
"Damon."
He approached.
"There's something underneath."
Matteo helped lift the loose boards.
Beneath them was a metal box.
Inside were photographs, legal documents, and a small blue notebook.
Kate stared.
"The blue book."
Damon opened it.
Page after page contained names, dates, account numbers, and payments.
Judges.
Police officials.
Politicians.
Business executives.
And near the back, one name appeared repeatedly.
Richard Caldwell.
Kate turned another page.
There was a photograph of her father.
Standing beside Damon Blackwell's father.
Underneath were five handwritten words.
They know what we discovered.
Kate looked at Damon.
"Your father knew mine?"
Damon's face had gone pale.
"Apparently."
She held up the photograph.
"Then tell me something."
Her voice trembled.
"Did your family have anything to do with my father's death?"
Damon looked at the picture.
May you like
And for the first time, Kate saw genuine fear in his eyes.
"I don't know."
