Chapter 4 - The Doctor Who Disappeared
The address led to an abandoned medical office outside Fort Worth.
Ethan refused to let Elena go inside first.
Elena ignored him and walked beside him anyway.
"You have a habit of not listening."
"You have a habit of giving orders nobody asked for."
Marcus almost smiled.
Inside, they found Dr. Nathan Mercer.
Older.
Thin.
Terrified.
He had been living under another name.
When he saw Elena, his face collapsed.
"You."
Elena stopped.
"You remember me?"
"I remember every person in that room."
Ethan moved between them.
"Where is my daughter?"
Mercer looked at him.
"I don't know."
Ethan seized his collar.
"Try again."
"I don't know!"
"Daniel says you ordered her declared dead."
"I did."
"Why?"
Mercer's eyes filled with shame.
"Because I was told to."
"By whom?"
"Your father."
Ethan released him.
"My father was dead."
"Not when this started."
Mercer explained.
Years earlier, Thomas Carter had funded an experimental pediatric neurological program.
Westbridge.
It began legitimately.
Then money disappeared.
Records were falsified.
Children without stable guardians were moved between facilities.
Thomas discovered the fraud too late.
"He tried to shut it down," Mercer said.
"Who stopped him?"
Mercer looked at Daniel.
"Someone inside Carter Holdings."
Daniel shook his head.
"Who?"
Mercer whispered, "Victor Shaw."
Ethan knew the name.
His father's attorney.
Current chairman of the Carter Foundation.
The man who had stood beside Ethan at Rachel and Lily's funeral.
Mercer continued.
"Rachel discovered Westbridge while reviewing foundation accounts. Lily overheard Rachel confronting Shaw."
"So Shaw tried to kill them?"
"I can't prove it."
"But you helped him."
Mercer looked down.
"After the crash, Shaw ordered me to declare Lily dead."
"Why didn't you?"
"I did on paper."
Ethan's fists tightened.
"But Daniel arrived. He threatened to expose everything. We arranged the transfer."
"Then she disappeared."
Mercer nodded.
"Someone intercepted the ambulance."
"Who?"
"I never knew."
Elena studied him.
"You're leaving something out."
Mercer looked at her.
She remembered him now.
The emergency room.
His bloody gloves.
His trembling hands.
And one sentence he had whispered to another nurse.
Keep the bracelet.
"What bracelet?"
Mercer went pale.
Ethan turned toward Elena.
"What?"
"Lily had a hospital identification bracelet."
Mercer backed away.
"Elena—"
"You removed it."
"No."
"I saw you."
Mercer's fear became panic.
"That bracelet wasn't hers."
Silence.
Ethan stared.
"What does that mean?"
Mercer sank into a chair.
"There were two girls."
The room stopped.
"Two?"
"Another pediatric trauma patient arrived within minutes. Similar age. Blonde. No identification."
Elena remembered.
Two gurneys.
She had forgotten.
Or forced herself to forget.
"The records were switched," Mercer said.
"Why?" Ethan demanded.
"To hide Lily."
"Then who died?"
Mercer looked devastated.
"The unidentified child."
Ethan stepped backward.
A stranger's child had been buried beneath Lily's name.
Somewhere, another family had lost a daughter without ever knowing.
"Where did Lily go?"
"Daniel's transfer team took her."
Daniel shook his head.
"My team never reached Westbridge."
Mercer looked confused.
"Then who took her?"
Marcus's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Ethan.
"Someone broke into the mansion."
"What did they take?"
"Nothing."
"Then why?"
Marcus hesitated.
"They opened Lily's room."
Ethan drove home faster than Elena had ever seen him drive.
Inside Lily's bedroom, everything looked untouched.
Except the stuffed rabbit.
It had been moved from the bed to the desk.
Elena picked it up.
Something hard was inside.
She found a seam.
Opened it.
A tiny voice recorder fell out.
Rachel's voice played.
"If Lily is alive, find Ana."
Ethan stared at Elena.
"Who's Ana?"
Rachel continued.
"She knows where the second child came from."
The recording clicked off.
May you like
Then the bedroom closet door creaked behind them.
Someone was inside.
