Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE FALSE DEATH CERTIFICATE
The construction permit was dated twelve years earlier.
It described a secure storage level beneath Blackwater House.
But the architectural plans showed something different.
Six treatment rooms.
A pharmacy.
A locked observation ward.
And a service tunnel leading toward an old coastal lighthouse.
I stared at the drawings spread across Dominic's dining table.
He had been discharged from the hospital under strict instructions to rest.
Naturally, he was ignoring half of them.
His surgeon had warned him that another injury could be fatal.
I reminded him of that every hour.
He reminded me that I wasn't his private nurse.
We argued about it twice before breakfast.
It was the first ordinary thing we'd done together.
Dominic pointed toward the plans.
“Room 417.”
I leaned closer.
The number appeared beside a narrow corridor.
Below it were three words.
Restricted Records Archive.
My pulse quickened.
“My mother went there.”
“How do you know?”
I remembered her returning home one evening with blood on her sleeve.
She told me she'd cut herself on broken glass.
But she'd been shaking.
“She said there were children whose names had been taken away.”
Dominic stared at the plans.
“Records archive,” he repeated.
I looked at him.
“What if the numbers weren't a room number?”
“What else?”
“An index.”
He frowned.
“Explain.”
“My mother kept saying the records mattered more than the building. If the building burned, the records could still prove who the children were.”
Dominic studied the pendant.
“Four. Seventeen. Nine.”
I nodded.
“Maybe it's a filing reference.”
That afternoon, Detective Ortiz called.
She had found the official who signed my death certificate.
Dr. Eleanor Voss.
I stared at the phone.
“Eleanor wasn't a doctor.”
“She was licensed as a physician before becoming an attorney.”
I felt sick.
“Why would she change careers?”
“We're looking into that.”
Ortiz hesitated.
“Grace, there's something else.”
“What?”
“Your mother's death certificate wasn't signed by a medical examiner.”
My throat tightened.
“Who signed it?”
“Eleanor Voss.”
I closed my eyes.
For twelve years, I'd believed my mother died in a fire.
The only proof had been a document signed by the woman who helped erase my identity.
Dominic found me sitting on the kitchen floor.
I hadn't realized I was crying.
He lowered himself carefully beside me.
“Grace?”
I looked up.
“What if she's alive?”
He said nothing.
“What if she spent twelve years looking for me?”
His expression softened.
“Then we'll try to find her.”
I shook my head.
“What if she thought I was dead?”
Dominic reached toward me.
Then stopped.
“May I?”
I nodded.
He took my hand.
His palm was warm.
Steady.
For the first time since the pendant appeared, I let myself lean against someone.
Not because I believed he could fix everything.
But because I was tired of being frightened alone.
That evening, an anonymous package arrived at Dominic's estate.
Inside was a medical identification bracelet.
The name printed on it was:
MIRIAM ELLISON.
May you like
Beneath the name was a date from six months earlier.
And the location of a private hospital in Vermont.
