Chapter 5 - The Woman in Rebecca’s Photograph
The mansion locked down.
Damian ordered every gate sealed.
Elena stayed with Noah.
The boy trembled against her.
“Safe,” she whispered.
He signed the word back.
Damian watched from across the room.
For the first time, he understood something Elena had understood immediately.
Noah did not need to be forced out of silence.
He needed someone willing to enter it with him.
Maddox survived the gunshot.
Barely.
An ambulance transported him under guard.
Vincent remained missing.
Damian searched his office.
Inside a locked drawer they found photographs of Rebecca.
Hospital records.
And a photograph of Evelyn Hart.
Elena stared at her mother’s face.
Thirteen years disappeared.
“She left me.”
“Maybe she didn’t,” Damian said.
“You don’t know her.”
“No. But Rebecca did.”
They found an address written behind the photograph.
Damian insisted on going.
Elena insisted Noah stay.
Noah refused.
He held her hand all the way to the car.
The address led to an abandoned church clinic.
Inside were dusty beds and old medical equipment.
Elena found children’s drawings covering one wall.
One showed a woman with brown hair holding two little girls’ hands.
Initials appeared below.
E.H.
Elena touched them.
“My mother.”
A floorboard creaked.
Damian turned.
An older woman stepped from behind a curtain.
Elena stopped breathing.
The woman had silver in her brown hair.
Tears filled her eyes.
“Elena.”
Elena could not move.
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“For thirteen years?”
Evelyn looked at Noah.
Then Damian.
“Rebecca is dead?”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“I warned her.”
“About what?”
“The cardiac network.”
She explained.
St. Catherine’s administrators had manipulated surgical priority lists. Rebecca discovered it. Evelyn helped collect evidence.
Then Lily arrived.
Elena’s daughter needed surgery.
Rebecca had secretly arranged to waive the deposit.
But someone intervened.
“Who?” Elena demanded.
Evelyn looked toward Damian.
“Someone connected to Mercer House.”
Damian went cold.
“Vincent?”
“I never knew his name.”
Noah squeezed Elena’s hand.
Evelyn noticed the bracelet.
“Where did you get that?”
“Lily made it.”
Evelyn began crying.
“She copied mine.”
Elena’s anger cracked.
“You met her?”
“Once.”
“You met my daughter and never came to me?”
“If they knew I had contacted you, they would have targeted you.”
“They did anyway.”
Evelyn lowered her head.
“I know.”
Damian asked the question Elena feared.
“Is Lily alive?”
Evelyn looked at her daughter.
“I don’t know.”
Elena nearly collapsed.
“There’s a photograph.”
“I sent it.”
“You sent it to Maddox?”
“He was helping Rebecca.”
Damian frowned.
“Maddox?”
“He wasn’t always a loan shark.”
Evelyn gave a bitter laugh.
“He was a Chicago detective.”
Damian remembered the badge-shaped scar on Maddox’s belt line.
Everything shifted again.
Evelyn opened a cabinet.
Inside were dozens of files.
“Rebecca believed one person controlled the entire network.”
“Who?”
“I never learned the name.”
“But Vincent did?”
“Yes.”
Damian’s phone rang.
Mercer House security.
He answered.
“Boss, we found Hale.”
“Where?”
A pause.
“In Mrs. Whitmore’s room.”
Damian looked at Grace.
She had remained at the mansion.
“What was he doing?”
“Bleeding.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“And Grace?”
Another pause.
“Missing.”
Damian ended the call.
Evelyn suddenly gripped Elena’s arm.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Grace Whitmore isn’t her real name.”
Elena stared.
Evelyn opened one final file.
Inside was a photograph of a much younger Grace.
Beside her stood Rebecca.
And beneath the photograph was a name.
Dr. Grace Mercer.
Damian looked at it.
May you like
His face went completely white.
Because Mercer had been his mother’s maiden name.
