Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE OF MISSING CHILDREN
I stood in my doorway staring at the words.
Daniel was beside me.
He hadn't insisted on coming upstairs.
I'd asked him.
Now I was grateful.
“Don't touch anything,” he said.
I nodded.
My apartment smelled faintly of paint.
The message was fresh.
Someone had been here recently.
Daniel called the police.
Then he called a woman named Detective Sarah Mitchell.
She arrived twenty minutes later.
Forty-two, sharp-eyed, wearing a dark coat and carrying the exhausted expression of someone who had spent years listening to lies.
She examined the wall.
“Who knows you're looking into Harbor House?”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently everyone except me.”
Daniel explained the restaurant.
The envelope.
Olivia.
The locket.
Sarah listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she looked at me.
“Emily, did your mother ever tell you why she left Harbor House?”
“No.”
“Did she ever seem afraid of anyone?”
I thought about childhood.
Mom checking the locks twice.
Mom refusing to answer calls from unknown numbers.
Mom telling me never to open the door for strangers.
I'd assumed she was simply cautious.
Now I wasn't sure.
“She used to tell me that some people looked kind because they needed you to trust them.”
Sarah wrote something down.
“Anything else?”
I hesitated.
“When I was little, she made me memorize an address.”
Daniel looked up.
“What address?”
“I don't remember all of it.”
“Try.”
I closed my eyes.
A yellow house.
A blue door.
A number.
Seventeen.
“Seventeen Willow Lane,” I whispered.
Sarah's pen stopped.
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
She hesitated.
“Harbor House had a secondary property.”
My heart raced.
“Where?”
“Seventeen Willow Lane.”
***
The next morning, we drove to the address.
The house stood in a quiet neighborhood outside Boston.
Yellow siding.
White shutters.
A blue front door.
Exactly as I remembered.
Except I'd never been there.
At least, I didn't think I had.
Daniel watched me.
“Does it look familiar?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Sarah had arranged for us to meet a retired social worker named Evelyn Price.
She was eighty-one and lived two streets away.
When she saw me, she began crying.
“Oh, Margaret's girl.”
I froze.
“You knew my mother?”
Evelyn nodded.
“She brought you here once.”
“When?”
“You were five.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
Evelyn looked toward Daniel.
“Because she was afraid Martin Bennett had found out what she'd done.”
“What did she do?”
Evelyn took my hand.
“She saved a child.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“Which child?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Hannah Brooks.”
The world went silent.
Daniel stared.
“My sister?”
Evelyn nodded.
“She was alive when Margaret took her away.”
Daniel's face changed.
“Where did she take her?”
Evelyn began crying.
“I don't know.”
“Please.”
“I swear I don't.”
I looked between them.
“What happened?”
Evelyn sat slowly.
“Martin Bennett was selling children through a network of private placements. Margaret discovered it. She tried to report him.”
“Then?”
“He threatened her.”
Daniel's voice was barely audible.
“And Hannah?”
“Hannah had seen something.”
“What?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“A man beating another child. She recognized him.”
Daniel's hands clenched.
“Who?”
Evelyn looked toward the window.
“Martin's business partner.”
“Name?”
She swallowed.
“Thomas Vale.”
Daniel went completely still.
I looked at him.
“Who is Thomas Vale?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Then he said:
“My father's former partner.”
***
On the drive back, Daniel was silent.
I watched him from the passenger seat.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
I appreciated the honesty.
“Do you think your father knew?”
Daniel looked at the road.
“I don't know.”
“Will you ask him?”
“My father died twelve years ago.”
“Oh.”
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“He spent the last ten years of his life searching for Hannah.”
I looked down.
“I'm sorry.”
Daniel said nothing.
Then, quietly:
“He died believing he'd failed her.”
I wanted to touch his hand.
I didn't.
We barely knew each other.
But the grief in his voice felt painfully familiar.
***
That evening, Sarah called.
She'd located an old police report.
Filed by Margaret Carter.
Twenty-two years earlier.
The report accused Martin Bennett and Thomas Vale of trafficking children.
It had been dismissed.
The officer who handled it later resigned.
His name was Jason Mercer.
My stomach dropped.
Jason.
My ex-boyfriend's father.
And suddenly I understood something terrible.
May you like
Jason hadn't entered my life by accident either.
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