Chapter 6 - Marcus’s First Wife
Marcus told me Sarah ran away with another man.
He described her as unstable, selfish, and addicted to attention. According to him, she emptied their savings, left a note on the kitchen table, and disappeared without ever filing for divorce.
I had believed him because everyone around Marcus repeated the same version.
Vivian called Sarah a parasite.
Dr. Lang called her emotionally volatile.
Marcus’s friends said he had been devastated.
Now the police had found another woman’s blood inside the cage.
I held the photograph beneath the hospital light.
Sarah’s smile looked strained. One hand rested over her stomach, hidden partly by the folds of her dark green dress.
“She was pregnant,” I said.
Agent Cross studied the image.
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
The dress had been designed to conceal her shape. I recognized the way her palm curved protectively beneath her ribs.
I had done the same thing during the first months of my pregnancy when Marcus insisted we keep the news private.
“Find her medical records.”
“We’ll need warrants.”
“Then get them.”
Naomi Bell stood near the door.
“We will.”
My anger had changed since the basement.
At first, it burned wildly. It made me shake, cry, and imagine breaking every object Marcus owned.
Now it had become something cleaner.
An edge.
The hospital transferred Grace and me to a guarded private room. Two officers remained outside the door at all times. Evelyn slept on the narrow sofa while I kept Grace’s bassinet beside my bed.
I woke every few minutes to check her breathing.
Near midnight, Naomi returned.
She carried a laptop and a stack of old case files.
“We found Sarah Mitchell,” she said.
“Alive?”
Naomi placed the files on the rolling table.
“No.”
The room went silent except for Grace’s soft breathing.
Sarah’s body had been discovered eleven years earlier in a reservoir two counties away. She had no identification. Police classified her death as an accidental drowning and buried her under an unknown name.
“How did you identify her?”
“Dental records. The DNA from the basement gave us a possible family match. Cross’s team worked backward.”
I opened the file.
The first photograph showed Sarah smiling in a driver’s-license portrait.
The next showed the reservoir.
I closed the folder.
“Was she pregnant?”
Naomi’s expression answered before she spoke.
“Approximately seven months.”
Evelyn covered her mouth.
My hand moved toward Grace’s bassinet.
“What happened to the baby?”
“Sarah was no longer pregnant when her body was recovered.”
I stared at Naomi.
“You mean the baby survived?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then what do you know?”
“Evidence suggests she gave birth shortly before her death.”
The cage.
The nursery.
The stolen motherhood.
This had happened before.
“Marcus has a child,” I said.
Naomi nodded carefully.
“It’s possible.”
“Where?”
“We’re investigating.”
I remembered family photographs in Vivian’s hallway. Marcus as a boy. Marcus graduating college. Marcus standing beside politicians and donors.
There were no photographs of Sarah.
But one picture had always seemed strange.
A little girl around ten years old standing beside Vivian at a summer fundraiser. Vivian had called her the daughter of an old friend.
The child had Marcus’s eyes.
“Emma,” I said.
Evelyn looked at me.
“Who?”
“Vivian’s goddaughter.”
I reached for my phone, then remembered Marcus had taken it. Evelyn handed me hers.
We searched through public images from the Vale Foundation.
There she was.
Emma Reed.
She appeared in photographs beginning at age three, always near Vivian, sometimes beside Marcus. Her listed parents were Jonathan and Marlene Reed, long-term employees of the foundation.
“Where is she now?” Naomi asked.
Evelyn searched.
“Marlene died four years ago. Jonathan is listed as a groundskeeper at Vivian’s country property.”
“And Emma?”
“No recent photographs.”
Naomi called Agent Cross.
Within twenty minutes, officers were sent to the country property.
The waiting became unbearable.
Grace woke hungry. A nurse helped me feed her while Evelyn paced near the window. For one peaceful moment, Grace’s tiny hand rested against my skin.
Then Naomi’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What did they find?” I asked.
She listened for nearly a minute.
“Bring them somewhere secure,” she said. “No, do not contact local administration. We don’t know who Marcus has compromised.”
She ended the call.
“Emma is alive.”
Relief passed through me.
“She’s fifteen. Officers found her and Jonathan Reed in a caretaker’s cottage.”
“Does she know who she is?”
“Jonathan claims Emma is his adopted daughter. He says Marcus brought her to him as a newborn.”
“And Sarah?”
“He says he never knew the mother’s identity.”
I did not believe him.
“Bring Emma here.”
“We can’t expose her to this environment.”
“She may be my husband’s daughter. Grace’s sister.”
Naomi sat beside my bed.
“Claire, Emma has spent her entire life surrounded by people connected to Marcus. We need to approach carefully.”
“Is she safe with Jonathan?”
Naomi hesitated.
“He voluntarily surrendered his phone and documents. But there’s something else.”
She turned the laptop toward me.
A photograph filled the screen.
Emma stood inside a barn holding a folded newspaper. She had long dark hair and a guarded expression.
In her other hand, she held a cardboard sign.
CLAIRE, I KNOW YOU SURVIVED.
My heartbeat quickened.
“When was this taken?”
“Tonight. She asked the officers to send it to you.”
“How does she know my name?”
Naomi clicked to the next image.
Emma held a second sign.
MY MOTHER LEFT YOU SOMETHING.
Then a third.
DO NOT TRUST DANIEL CROSS.
I looked toward the guarded hospital door.
May you like
Agent Cross stood just outside it.
And he was watching us through the glass.
