PART 4 — THE CHILDREN OF SAINT AGNES
Arthur Sterling caught Rose before she hit the floor.
Her head rolled against his shoulder, the silver angel necklace disappearing beneath the collar of her red coat.
I raised Mayor Whitmore’s pistol.
“Let her go.”
Sterling glanced at the weapon without fear.
“You’ve never fired a gun in your life, Martha.”
“Tonight has been full of firsts.”
His smile faded.
Rose’s body hung limply in his arms, but I could still see the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
“What did you inject her with?”
“Something to help her sleep.”
“You kidnapped a child.”
“No,” he said calmly. “I recovered stolen property.”
My finger tightened against the trigger.
“She is not property.”
“To men like Elias Whitmore, everyone is property.”
The answer caught me off guard.
“You’re working for him.”
Sterling looked toward the broken front door.
“Mayor Whitmore is lying beneath the farmhouse with at least three broken ribs. I doubt he is working for anyone at the moment.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I heard him screaming through the radio in his coat.”
A small black device was clipped to Sterling’s belt.
Static hissed from it.
Then Sheriff Parker’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Sterling, report.”
Sterling pressed a button.
“I have Martha and Rose.”
“Bring them both.”
“What about Whitmore?”
A pause followed.
Then the sheriff answered:
“Leave him.”
Sterling released the button.
His eyes met mine.
“You see, Martha? Loyalty disappears quickly when powerful men become inconvenient.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
He shifted Rose’s weight in his arms.
“But if you shoot me, she may never wake up. The injection must be reversed within ninety minutes.”
My grip weakened.
He saw it.
“Put the gun on the table.”
“You could be lying.”
“I could.”
Sterling looked at the clock hanging above my kitchen sink.
It read 1:41 in the morning.
“Every second you spend deciding belongs to Rose.”
I hated him for making the choice so simple.
I lowered the pistol.
“Slide it toward me,” he instructed.
I placed it on the kitchen table and pushed it across the wood.
Sterling caught it with his free hand.
“Good.”
“Where is the antidote?”
“At Saint Agnes.”
“And Emily?”
“Alive, for now.”
My heart tightened.
“She is Chloe’s daughter, isn’t she?”
Sterling studied me for several seconds.
“That depends on which truth you’re ready to hear.”
“There is only one truth.”
“No, Mrs. Henderson. There is the truth people survive—and the truth that kills them.”
He pointed the pistol toward the back door.
“Get your coat.”
Sterling placed Rose across the back seat of his black sedan.
He tied her wrists with a plastic cord, then secured me in the passenger seat with another.
My hands were bound in front of me, but he had taken the notebook, Chloe’s cassette, the birth certificate and the folder from the farmhouse.
Everything that could expose them was now inside his leather briefcase.
As we drove away from my house, I looked back through the window.
The white candle beside Chloe’s photograph was still burning.
No wind touched it.
No shadow crossed it.
Yet the flame suddenly leaned toward the northern road.
Toward Saint Agnes.
As though Chloe were pointing the way.
Sterling drove through the sleeping town without turning on the radio.
Every storefront was dark.
The church bell had stopped ringing.
Not a single police car passed us.
“Sheriff Parker controls the roads,” I said.
Sterling kept his eyes forward.
“Dean Parker controls more than the roads.”
“How many people know?”
“Enough to keep a secret. Not enough to feel responsible.”
“You signed my daughter’s death papers.”
“I prepared them.”
“You told me not to question the police.”
“I was following instructions.”
“You stood in my house while I cried.”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“I remember.”
“And you still did nothing.”
He looked at me briefly.
“You think doing nothing is the worst thing a person can do.”
“It is.”
“No. Sometimes helping is worse.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
He did not answer.
We left the paved road and entered the forest.
Tall pines swallowed the moonlight. Their branches bent over the car as if trying to block our path.
Ten years earlier, police had told me Chloe’s car went off the highway near Bend.
But Sterling did not drive toward Bend.
He turned onto an abandoned logging road less than twelve miles from my home.
My daughter had died close enough to hear the church bells.
All those years, I had imagined her final moments in some distant ravine.
She had been in our own town.
Surrounded by people who knew her name.
The road ended at a rusted iron gate.
Above it, barely visible beneath vines, were the words:
SAINT AGNES HOME FOR UNWED MOTHERS
The gate opened before Sterling sounded the horn.
A camera followed our car as we entered.
Beyond the trees stood a four-story brick building with narrow windows and a bell tower rising from its center.
Saint Agnes was supposed to have closed in 1987.
Yet lights glowed behind the basement windows.
Two white vans were parked beside the rear entrance.
One had no license plates.
The other carried the logo of the county children’s hospital.
Sterling stopped beside a loading dock.
Sheriff Dean Parker was waiting.
He wore his uniform beneath a heavy brown coat. His white hair was neatly combed, and his badge reflected the security light.
I had known him for thirty-two years.
He had investigated Chloe’s “accident.”
He had brought casseroles to my house after Samuel died.
He had once repaired my fence without charging me.
Now he opened my door as though we were old friends arriving at church.
“Martha,” he said. “You’ve caused a great deal of trouble tonight.”
I spat in his face.
His expression did not change.
He wiped his cheek with a handkerchief.
“Still spirited. Just like Chloe.”
I lunged at him.
Sterling caught my shoulder.
Sheriff Parker leaned close.
“Do that again, and I’ll have Rose carried downstairs instead of to the infirmary.”
“Where is Emily?”
“Waiting for you.”
“You kidnapped your own granddaughter.”
His eyes hardened.
“Emily is not my granddaughter.”
“You raised her.”
“I protected her.”
“From whom?”
“From the truth.”
Sterling opened the back door and lifted Rose.
The sheriff glanced at her unconscious face.
“How much did you give her?”
“Enough.”
“You were told to keep her awake.”
“She fought.”
Sheriff Parker cursed beneath his breath.
“Get her to Miriam.”
At the sound of that name, Sterling went still.
It lasted less than a second.
But I noticed.
Sheriff Parker noticed too.
“Is there a problem?”
“No.”
Sterling carried Rose through the loading entrance.
The sheriff gripped my arm and led me behind him.
Inside, Saint Agnes smelled of bleach, wet stone and old medicine.
The corridor walls had once been painted pale pink. Beneath the peeling paint, I could see names scratched into the plaster.
SARAH
LOUISE
MARY
PLEASE TELL MY MOTHER
Some of the messages had been covered with fresh coats of paint.
Others were too deeply carved to erase.
We passed a row of locked doors.
Behind one, a child began crying.
Another child whispered for someone named Anna.
I pulled against the sheriff’s grip.
“How many children are here?”
“Keep walking.”
“How many?”
He shoved me forward.
A camera rotated above us.
At the end of the corridor, Sterling carried Rose through a pair of swinging doors marked INFIRMARY.
I tried to follow.
Sheriff Parker blocked me.
“You’ll see her after you cooperate.”
“You said she needs an antidote.”
“She does.”
“Then give it to her.”
“That decision belongs to Nurse Miriam.”
A metal door opened behind me.
A woman stepped into the corridor.
She wore dark blue medical scrubs beneath a white coat. Her silver hair had been tied into a tight knot, and a thin scar ran from her left eyebrow to the corner of her mouth.
She looked to be in her late sixties.
Her eyes were green.
The same shade as mine.
“Martha,” she said.
She did not sound surprised to see me.
She sounded heartbroken.
I stared at her.
“You’re Miriam?”
Sheriff Parker grabbed her arm.
“You were told to stay downstairs.”
Miriam pulled free.
“And you were told not to harm Rose.”
“She’s alive.”
“For the moment.”
She pushed through the infirmary doors.
I followed before Parker could stop me.
Rose lay on a narrow hospital bed.
Sterling stood beside her, preparing another syringe.
Miriam snatched it from his hand.
“That is not the reversal agent.”
Sterling said nothing.
She held the syringe up to the light.
“What is it?” I demanded.
Miriam looked at the sheriff.
“Potassium chloride.”
The room became silent.
I understood enough to know what it meant.
“That would stop her heart.”
Miriam nodded.
Sterling stepped back.
“I was following Parker’s order.”
“You lying coward,” the sheriff snapped.
Sterling reached into his pocket.
Sheriff Parker drew his weapon.
For one terrifying second, every person in the room froze.
Then Miriam plunged her hand into a metal cabinet and removed a small vial.
“She has less than five minutes,” she said.
The sheriff kept his gun aimed at Sterling.
“Save her.”
Miriam injected the medicine into Rose’s arm.
I rushed to the bed.
“Rose?”
There was no response.
Miriam placed two fingers against the child’s neck.
“Her pulse is weak.”
“Will she wake up?”
“She should.”
“Should?”
“I don’t know what else he gave her.”
Sterling lowered his hand.
“I gave her the standard sedative.”
“Standard for whom?” Miriam asked. “A grown man?”
Rose’s lips had begun turning blue.
Miriam pulled an oxygen mask over her face.
I held the child’s cold hand.
“Stay with me,” I whispered. “You survived the blue room. You survived the farmhouse. Don’t let them take you now.”
The heart monitor beeped slowly.
Once.
Then again.
The space between the sounds grew longer.
Miriam pressed her palms against Rose’s chest.
“Come on.”
The monitor released one continuous tone.
“No!” I screamed.
Miriam began compressions.
Sterling looked away.
Sheriff Parker remained motionless.
Miriam pressed harder.
“One, two, three, four…”
Rose’s small body moved beneath her hands.
“Breathe, sweetheart.”
Nothing.
Miriam reached for another syringe and injected it directly into the IV line.
The monitor stayed flat.
I leaned close to Rose’s ear.
“Chloe,” I whispered desperately, “if you can hear me, don’t let this child die.”
The overhead lights flickered.
Every cabinet door flew open at once.
Glass bottles shattered across the floor.
Sheriff Parker spun toward the darkness.
“What the hell was that?”
Then the heart monitor beeped.
Once.
Miriam stopped compressions.
Another beep followed.
Then another.
Rose gasped beneath the oxygen mask.
Her back arched from the bed as air rushed into her lungs.
I burst into tears.
Miriam held Rose’s face between her hands.
“That’s it. Come back.”
Rose’s eyes opened.
For a moment, she stared at the ceiling.
Then she turned toward me.
“Martha?”
“I’m here.”
Her hand closed weakly around mine.
“The woman in yellow was standing beside you.”
I looked over my shoulder.
There was no one there.
Sheriff Parker grabbed my arm.
“That’s enough.”
Miriam stepped between us.
“She cannot be moved.”
“I’m not talking about the girl.”
He dragged me toward the door.
Sterling picked up his briefcase and followed.
“Martha has another appointment.”
“With Emily?” I demanded.
The sheriff smiled.
“With all of them.”
He took me down two flights of stairs.
The deeper we went, the newer the building became.
The cracked walls gave way to polished concrete. Modern keypads guarded steel doors. Fluorescent lights buzzed above security cameras.
Saint Agnes had not been abandoned.
It had been expanded underground.
At the lowest level, Sheriff Parker pressed his thumb against a scanner.
A heavy door unlocked.
Beyond it was a long observation room divided by one-way glass.
Seven children sat at separate tables on the other side.
Four girls.
Three boys.
Each wore gray clothing without names.
Each had a numbered bracelet around one wrist.
A woman moved between them, placing photographs on the tables.
Photographs of families.
Homes.
Dead parents.
“Who are they?” I asked.
Sterling set his briefcase on a desk.
“Children whose identities required adjustment.”
“You mean stolen children.”
“Some were abandoned. Some were sold. Some were removed from dangerous homes.”
“And some were taken from women who were told their babies died.”
Sterling did not deny it.
I stepped closer to the glass.
One little boy stared at a photograph of a smiling couple.
A speaker above him repeated:
“They are your parents. They have always been your parents.”
The boy began to cry.
The recording started again.
“They are your parents. They have always been your parents.”
I felt sick.
“This is what you did to Rose.”
Sheriff Parker stood beside me.
“Rose was brought here when she was six. Before that, she lived with a woman who kept her locked in a laundry room.”
“You didn’t rescue her. You erased her.”
“We gave her a purpose.”
“You turned her into Chloe.”
“We needed to know whether Whitmore’s daughter carried any memories that could expose us.”
“Babies don’t remember their mothers’ secrets.”
“Blood remembers.”
“That is madness.”
“Is it?”
He looked directly at me.
“You heard Chloe’s voice after ten years.”
My mouth went dry.
Sheriff Parker continued.
“You found her body because she guided you to it. Rose saw her spirit. Lights moved when you said her name.”
He moved closer.
“We have spent decades pretending such things are impossible while using them whenever they served us.”
Sterling opened the briefcase.
He removed Chloe’s cassette and placed it beside an old tape recorder.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
The sheriff pointed toward a door at the far end of the observation room.
“I want you to identify your granddaughter.”
“You already know it’s Emily.”
“We believe it is Emily.”
“You raised her for ten years.”
“My son and his wife raised her. I merely supervised.”
“Does your son know where she came from?”
“He knows what I told him.”
“Which was?”
“That her birth mother died from an overdose.”
I turned toward the glass.
“Where is Emily?”
The sheriff pressed another button.
The room beyond the glass went dark.
A spotlight illuminated a door.
It opened.
Emily entered wearing a white hospital gown.
Her bare feet moved slowly across the floor.
Her hands were tied in front of her.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
A bruise covered one side of her face.
I slammed my palms against the glass.
“Emily!”
She could not hear me.
Sterling switched on a microphone.
“Call her Lily,” Sheriff Parker instructed.
“No.”
“Call her by the name Chloe gave her.”
“Let her go.”
“First, we test her.”
“What test?”
He removed the silver bracelet I had taken from Chloe’s bones.
The letters of her name glittered beneath the fluorescent lights.
He placed it in my hand.
“Tell Emily it belonged to her mother.”
“It did.”
“Then ask where Chloe hid the final recording.”
I stared at him.
“What final recording?”
“The cassette from the well is incomplete. Chloe made another tape after Samuel moved her body.”
“That is impossible.”
“She was not dead when Samuel placed her there.”
The room tilted around me.
I gripped the desk.
“What did you say?”
Sterling’s eyes dropped.
Sheriff Parker remained calm.
“Samuel found Chloe bleeding at the farmhouse. She begged him not to take her to the hospital because Whitmore controlled the doctors. He brought her home and hid her in the dry well while he searched for help.”
My chest felt as though it were splitting open.
“You said he hid her body.”
“She was dying. Samuel believed the well was the only place our men would not search immediately.”
“How long was she alive down there?”
“Two days.”
I imagined Chloe alone beneath my backyard.
Cold.
Injured.
Close enough to hear me calling her name.
“Did she call for me?”
Sheriff Parker did not answer.
I struck him across the face.
He seized my wrist.
Sterling moved between us.
“That’s enough.”
The sheriff released me.
A red mark spread across his cheek.
“Chloe made a second recording during those two days,” he said. “It named every family involved in the Saint Agnes operation.”
“Then why didn’t Samuel find it?”
“He did. But before he died, he gave it to the child he believed was Lily.”
“Emily.”
“We don’t know.”
“How could a baby protect a cassette?”
“He hid it inside an object that traveled with her.”
The angel necklace.
I looked toward the infirmary above us.
Rose was wearing it.
Sheriff Parker watched my face.
“You understand now.”
“The necklace has the recording.”
“We examined it years ago. There was nothing inside.”
“Then Samuel hid it somewhere else.”
“That is what Emily is going to tell us.”
“She was three days old. She cannot know.”
Sheriff Parker leaned toward the microphone.
“But Chloe may know through her.”
He switched it on.
“Martha,” Sterling said quietly, “don’t do this.”
The sheriff turned toward him.
“You have remembered your conscience at an inconvenient time.”
Sterling stared through the glass at Emily.
“I remember what happened the last time you conducted this test.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Neither man answered.
Sheriff Parker placed the microphone in my hand.
“Speak.”
I looked at Emily.
She stood alone beneath the light, trembling.
I pressed the button.
“Emily?”
Her head lifted.
“Mrs. Henderson?”
“Yes, sweetheart. It’s me.”
She ran toward the glass.
I could see her face, but she saw only her own reflection.
“Where are you?”
“On the other side of the wall.”
“Please get me out.”
“I will.”
Sheriff Parker shook his head.
I forced myself to continue.
“Emily, I need to ask you about Chloe.”
The child went still.
“Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“She sings to me.”
The sheriff and Sterling exchanged a look.
“When does she sing?”
“When they turn off the lights.”
“What does she sing?”
“A song about a little bird flying home.”
I knew that song.
Chloe had written it when she was seventeen.
She had never performed it for anyone except me.
I pressed my forehead against the glass.
“Emily, Chloe was your mother.”
The lights above her flickered.
The child touched the crescent-shaped birthmark behind her ear.
“I know.”
Sheriff Parker stepped closer.
“How does she know?” he demanded.
I ignored him.
“How do you know, Emily?”
“She told me in the room beside Nurse Miriam.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“That woman was locked in another room.”
“Not Nurse Miriam.”
Emily looked toward the dark corner behind her.
“Chloe.”
A shadow appeared on the wall.
The shape of a young woman in a yellow dress.
Sheriff Parker grabbed the microphone.
“Where is the recording?”
Emily screamed.
The lights shattered.
Darkness swallowed the room beyond the glass.
Children began crying.
Emergency alarms sounded through the underground floor.
Red lights flashed along the corridor.
A girl’s voice came through every speaker.
Not a recording.
Not static.
Chloe’s living, furious voice.
“You left me in the dark.”
Sheriff Parker backed away.
Sterling dropped the briefcase.
The locks on all seven children’s doors clicked open.
One after another.
The children ran into the corridor.
Security guards shouted.
Somewhere above us, glass broke.
Sheriff Parker drew his pistol.
“Shut down the power!”
The speaker crackled again.
“You listened while I begged for my mother.”
I turned toward Parker.
“You heard her?”
He aimed his gun at the ceiling.
“It isn’t real.”
“You heard my daughter dying.”
“We all heard her.”
My blood became ice.
“All of you?”
Sterling sank into a chair.
He covered his face.
“Samuel placed a radio in the well,” he whispered. “He begged us to send help.”
I could barely breathe.
“And you didn’t?”
Sterling’s eyes filled with tears.
“Whitmore ordered us to wait.”
“How long?”
“Until she stopped calling.”
A scream tore out of me.
I grabbed the metal chair beside the desk and swung it at Sheriff Parker.
He fired.
The bullet struck the glass.
A spiderweb of cracks spread across it.
I swung again.
The chair hit his shoulder.
His pistol fell.
Sterling kicked it beneath the desk.
The sheriff attacked him.
They crashed against the control panel, tearing wires from the wall.
The cracked observation glass gave way.
It exploded into the testing room.
I climbed through the opening.
“Emily!”
She emerged from beneath a table.
I pulled her into my arms.
Her body shook violently.
“I knew you would come,” she sobbed.
I held her face.
“Did Chloe tell you where Samuel hid the recording?”
Emily reached inside her hospital gown.
She removed a small brass key attached to a piece of string.
“Grandpa had this in his office.”
Sheriff Parker froze.
“Give me that.”
Emily clung to me.
“What does it open?” I asked.
She pointed toward the old chapel above us.
“The box beneath Saint Agnes.”
Sterling shoved the sheriff into the wall.
“Take the children,” he shouted. “Use the east staircase!”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because I heard Chloe too.”
He looked toward the speakers.
“And because I was the man who told Samuel to put the radio in the well.”
Sheriff Parker struck him in the stomach.
Sterling collapsed.
The sheriff reached for his fallen pistol.
Before he could grab it, Rose appeared in the doorway.
She was pale and unsteady, one hand gripping the wall for support.
Miriam stood behind her.
Rose held Mayor Whitmore’s gun.
“Don’t move,” she said.
Sheriff Parker laughed.
“You don’t even know how to use that.”
Rose aimed at the ceiling and fired.
The explosion silenced everyone.
“I learned fast.”
Miriam rushed toward me.
“We need to leave. Guards are coming from the north wing.”
“You’re coming with us.”
She looked at the brass key in Emily’s hand.
“No.”
“You know what it opens.”
Her face changed.
“Miriam,” I said, “what is beneath the chapel?”
She looked at Sheriff Parker.
Then at Sterling.
Finally, she looked at me.
“Birth records.”
“Whose?”
“All of them.”
The alarms continued blaring.
Children crowded around us.
Some were crying.
Others stared without emotion, as though fear had been trained out of them.
Miriam grabbed my hands.
“There’s something else you need to understand before we open that box.”
“What?”
She took a slow breath.
“My name wasn’t always Miriam.”
Sheriff Parker shouted from across the room.
“Don’t tell her!”
Rose raised the gun.
“Be quiet.”
Miriam’s green eyes remained fixed on mine.
“I was born inside this building thirty-four years ago.”
My heart began to pound.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“I didn’t know until Samuel found the original records.”
She reached beneath her collar and pulled out a chain.
A tiny hospital identification tag hung from it.
The metal was faded, but I could still read the engraving.
BABY GIRL HENDERSON
My legs nearly gave way.
“No.”
Miriam’s voice broke.
“You were seventeen when you gave birth to me.”
The room seemed to disappear.
I was back in a white hospital bed.
Seventeen years old.
Terrified.
A nun holding my hand while a doctor told me my baby had been born without breathing.
They never let me hold her.
They buried a tiny white coffin before my parents brought me home.
A coffin I had never been allowed to open.
Just like Chloe’s.
“They told me you died,” I whispered.
“They sold me to a family in Washington.”
I touched the scar on Miriam’s face.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I tried. Samuel found me first. He begged me to stay away until he could destroy Saint Agnes.”
“Samuel knew?”
“He discovered the truth after Chloe became pregnant. He found my birth record while searching for a way to protect her baby.”
Tears ran down my face.
All those years, my husband had carried two impossible secrets.
Miriam placed her forehead against mine.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
The word shattered something inside me.
I wrapped my arms around the daughter I had mourned for more than three decades.
For one brief second, the alarms faded.
The guns disappeared.
I held my first child.
Alive.
Then Sheriff Parker lunged for Rose.
He twisted her wrist.
The pistol fired into the floor.
Rose screamed.
Parker seized her by the throat and dragged her in front of him.
“Drop the key,” he ordered Emily.
Emily hid behind me.
“Let her go,” I said.
“Open your hand.”
Emily began crying.
I knelt beside her.
“Sweetheart, trust me.”
She slowly opened her fingers.
The brass key fell to the floor.
Sheriff Parker smiled.
Then every red emergency light shut off.
The underground level became completely dark.
Chloe’s voice whispered from the speaker directly behind him.
“She trusted you once too.”
Sheriff Parker spun around.
Rose bit his hand.
He released her.
Miriam pulled both girls toward the east staircase.
Sterling tackled Parker.
“Go!” he shouted.
I gathered the children and followed Miriam.
Behind us, two gunshots rang out.
I did not know who had been hit.
We climbed three flights of stairs and entered the old chapel.
Moonlight poured through broken stained-glass windows.
Dusty wooden pews faced an altar covered by a torn white cloth.
A statue of Saint Agnes stood above it, holding a lamb in her stone arms.
Emily pointed.
“Under there.”
Miriam and I pushed the altar aside.
Beneath it was an iron door set into the floor.
At its center was a small brass lock.
Emily inserted the key.
It turned.
The door opened onto a narrow staircase.
Cold air rose from below.
I led the way with a candle taken from the altar.
The stairs descended into a circular stone chamber.
Shelves covered every wall.
Hundreds of files filled them.
Each folder carried the name of a mother.
Some were dated more than fifty years earlier.
Miriam found mine.
MARTHA ELLEN WALKER — 1992
Inside was a birth certificate.
A photograph of me sleeping in the hospital bed.
A payment receipt signed by Miriam’s adoptive parents.
And a death certificate for a baby who had never died.
Miriam covered her mouth.
Rose found another shelf.
“Chloe’s name is here.”
I rushed toward her.
A thick red folder was labeled:
CHLOE MARIE HENDERSON
Inside were photographs of Chloe during her pregnancy.
Medical reports.
Transcripts of phone calls.
A list of seven baby girls born during the same week.
Emily stood beside me.
Her name appeared beside number four.
INFANT 4 — TRANSFERRED TO PARKER FAMILY
At the bottom of the page, someone had written:
MATERNAL MATCH CONFIRMED
I pulled Emily against me.
“You are Lily.”
She began to cry.
“My mother called me that?”
“She did.”
Miriam searched the folder.
“The final recording isn’t here.”
Emily pointed toward the back wall.
“There.”
A black metal box rested behind the files.
I carried it to a table.
The key opened its first lock, but a second lock remained.
This one did not have a keyhole.
It had a circular indentation shaped like a piece of jewelry.
Miriam looked at Rose.
“The angel necklace.”
Rose removed it and handed it to me.
I pressed the silver angel into the indentation.
The box clicked open.
Inside was a small tape recorder.
A red light was still blinking.
After ten years.
Beside it lay a sealed envelope addressed in Chloe’s handwriting.
FOR MY MOTHER—ONLY AFTER SHE FINDS BOTH OF MY DAUGHTERS
I stared at the words.
Both of my daughters.
Emily read them over my shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
Rose stepped back.
“I’m not her daughter.”
Miriam slowly opened the folder again.
There were seven birth records.
But Chloe’s medical report contained something none of us had noticed.
MULTIPLE PREGNANCY: FEMALE TWINS
My hands began to shake.
“Chloe had twins.”
Emily looked at Rose.
Rose shook her head.
“No.”
I examined the records.
Infant Four had been transferred to the Parker family.
Infant Five had no transfer information.
Only one word appeared beside it.
RETAINED
Rose’s knees buckled.
Miriam caught her.
“No,” Rose whispered. “They told me I was brought here when I was six.”
“They lied,” Miriam said.
Rose touched the silver angel necklace.
Her face twisted with fear and hope.
“Then why did Chloe say I wasn’t her daughter?”
The tape recorder turned on by itself.
Chloe’s voice filled the underground chamber.
“Because Rose isn’t the name they gave my second baby.”
Rose stared at the machine.
The red light blinked.
“My second daughter had a small heart-shaped mark beneath her right foot.”
Miriam removed Rose’s shoe.
On the sole of her foot was a pale birthmark shaped like a heart.
Rose stopped breathing.
Chloe continued:
“Her name is not Rose.”
The chamber door slammed shut above us.
Someone locked it from the outside.
Heavy footsteps crossed the chapel.
Sheriff Parker’s voice called down through the iron door.
“You found the records for me, Martha.”
Smoke began pouring through the cracks in the ceiling.
He had set the chapel on fire.
The children screamed.
I grabbed the tape recorder as flames crackled above us.
Chloe’s voice delivered the final words on the recording:
“My second daughter’s name is Agnes—and she is the only person alive who knows who truly killed me.”
Everyone turned toward Rose.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I remember now,” she whispered.
“I remember the night Chloe died.”………………
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
