PART 2: THE HOUSE THAT HELD MY DAUGHTER’S DARKEST SECRET
I sat in my rental car for nearly twenty minutes, staring at the cottage through the windshield.
The engine had gone quiet, but my hands were still wrapped around the steering wheel. Beyond the broad windows, the Gulf of St. Lawrence stretched toward a horizon blurred by low clouds. The house stood perfectly still against the wind, its dark cedar siding immaculate, its windows reflecting the pale April sky.
There was no mold.
There was no evidence of damage.
And there was absolutely no reason my daughter should have kept me away from this place for four years.
At least, none that I could see.
I looked down at the envelope resting on the passenger seat. Patricia had given it to me along with the brass key, but I had not opened it. Renee’s handwriting covered the front.
“For Mom. When you finally come.”
I had read those five words so many times that the paper had begun to soften where my fingers touched it.
When you finally come.
Not if.
When.
As though Renee had known I would eventually find the courage to stand here.
I stepped out of the car and immediately pulled my coat tighter. The wind carried the sharp scent of saltwater and wet spruce. Somewhere below the cliffs, waves struck the rocks with a deep, steady rhythm.
The gravel crunched beneath my shoes as I approached the front porch.
There were two wooden rocking chairs beside the door.
One was painted navy blue.
The other was pale yellow.
I stopped walking.
Yellow had always been my favorite color.
When Renee was seven, she painted a wooden chair yellow for my birthday. She used so much paint that it dripped down the legs and dried in thick, uneven streaks. I had kept that ridiculous little chair for years, even after she outgrew it.
The yellow rocking chair on this porch had a small cushion embroidered with a lavender flower.
Lavender.
The same flower I grew every summer in my garden in Thunder Bay.
I touched the cushion, and something cold moved through my chest.
“Renee,” I whispered. “What were you doing here?”
There was no answer.
I unlocked the front door.
It opened smoothly.
Warm air brushed against my face.
I stood frozen on the threshold.
The house was heated.
Not barely heated to keep pipes from freezing. Comfortably heated, as though someone had been expecting a visitor.
A faint fragrance drifted through the entrance.
Cedar.
Lemon.
And something else.
Something that made my throat tighten.
Fresh lavender.
I stepped inside.
The entrance opened into a spacious living room with polished hardwood floors, high ceilings, and enormous windows overlooking the ocean. A stone fireplace occupied one wall. Bookshelves lined another. The furniture was elegant but comfortable, with wool blankets folded neatly over the arms of the sofas.
Everything was clean.
Everything was carefully arranged.
And everything felt strangely familiar.
I walked farther inside, my suitcase rolling quietly behind me.
On the mantelpiece stood a framed photograph.
I recognized it immediately.
It showed a little girl in a red winter coat standing beside a frozen lake, holding a crooked snowman by one stick arm.
Renee.
She had been six years old.
I was the one who had taken that photograph.
The original had hung in my hallway for nearly thirty years.
I picked up the frame.
On the back, written in Renee’s handwriting, were four words.
“The happiest winter ever.”
My eyes filled.
I put the photograph back before I dropped it.
Then I turned.
And saw the wall.
At first, I thought it was an unusual decorating choice.
The entire far wall of the living room was covered with framed photographs. Dozens of them, arranged in neat rows from floor to ceiling.
I moved closer.
The first photograph showed me standing outside my old school in Thunder Bay, holding a bouquet of flowers on my retirement day.
The second showed me at a Christmas market.
The third showed me kneeling beside my herb garden.
I frowned.
I had never given Renee those pictures.
Some had been posted online by friends, but others were photographs I had mailed to her years earlier.
I continued looking.
There I was at fifty.
At fifty-five.
At sixty.
In one photograph, I was standing beside my late husband, Daniel, during our final family vacation before cancer took him.
Renee stood between us, smiling so broadly that her eyes nearly disappeared.
I pressed my fingers against the frame.
Then I noticed something unsettling.
Beneath each photograph was a small brass plate.
Each plate held a date.
And a sentence.
Beneath my retirement photograph, it read:
“She taught other people’s children for thirty-seven years and never stopped making time for me.”
Beneath the Christmas market picture:
“She always bought me something, even when I insisted I didn’t need anything.”
Beneath the photograph of Daniel:
“She lost the love of her life and somehow remained strong enough to help me through losing my father.”
I read the sentences slowly.
They were not descriptions.
They were memories.
Renee’s memories of me.
My breath caught as I reached the last photograph.
It was a picture of me taken four years earlier, on the day Renee and Thomas told me they had bought the cottage.
I was standing in my kitchen, holding the telephone, laughing.
I remembered that conversation.
I had asked whether there would be a guest room.
Renee had laughed and promised there would be.
Beneath the photograph, the brass plate read:
“The day I made a promise I was terrified I couldn’t keep.”
I stared at the words.
A promise?
What promise?
And why had she been terrified?
I backed away from the wall, suddenly aware of how quiet the house was.
A faint mechanical hum came from somewhere beneath the floor.
I followed it toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was beautiful.
White cabinets. Dark stone countertops. A large farmhouse sink beneath a window facing the trees.
And on the kitchen island sat a ceramic bowl filled with artificial lemons.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
“Mom, if you’re reading this, please make yourself some tea before you go any farther. You’ll need it.”
I recognized Renee’s handwriting immediately.
I sat down.
For several seconds, I could only stare.
My daughter had written this for me.
Not as an ordinary note.
As an instruction.
As though she had planned exactly how I would move through this house.
There was a kettle beside the stove.
Three boxes of tea stood neatly arranged on the counter.
Peppermint.
Chamomile.
Earl Grey.
My favorites.
I opened the refrigerator.
Bottled water.
Milk.
Butter.
A sealed container of homemade vegetable soup.
I checked the label.
It had been prepared two days earlier.
Two days.
Renee and Thomas had been dead for almost a month.
Someone was maintaining this property.
Someone had prepared food.
Someone knew I was coming.
I closed the refrigerator very slowly.
Then I heard a sound behind me.
A soft click.
I spun around.
A small rectangular screen mounted near the kitchen doorway had illuminated.
White letters appeared against a dark blue background.
WELCOME HOME, MARGARET.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
For a moment, I simply stared.
Then another message appeared.
PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID.
“Who’s there?” I called.
My voice sounded thin and unfamiliar.
No one answered.
The screen went dark again.
I backed toward the kitchen island and grabbed my phone.
One bar of service.
Then none.
I remembered the young man at the rental counter.
Reception dies in the highlands.
I looked toward the front door.
It remained closed.
I could leave.
I could get into my rental car and drive back toward Sydney.
I could call Patricia, tell her the entire thing was too strange, and arrange for the property to be sold without ever returning.
But then my eyes fell on the unopened envelope.
Renee had wanted me here.
Whatever this was, my daughter had arranged it before she died.
I took the envelope from my handbag.
My fingers trembled as I broke the seal.
Inside were three pages.
The first began:
“Dear Mom,
“If you’re standing inside the cottage, then something happened that I desperately hoped would never happen.
“I know you’re angry with me.
“You have every right to be.
“For four years, I told you this house was unsafe because of mold. That was a lie.
“But the danger was real.
“And the person I was trying to protect was you.”
I stopped reading.
The person I was trying to protect was you.
I looked toward the windows.
The forest beyond the glass stood motionless.
I forced myself to continue.
“I wanted to tell you everything so many times. Every birthday, every Christmas, every phone call when you asked about the repairs, I almost confessed.
“But Thomas reminded me why we started this.
“He was right.
“If you had known what we found, you would have insisted on helping us.
“And you would have been in danger.”
A cold sensation spread across my shoulders.
What had they found?
Renee had been an environmental toxicologist. She studied contamination, chemical exposure, and environmental health risks.
Thomas worked with vulnerable communities.
Had they discovered something dangerous?
Had someone threatened them?
I turned the page.
“Mom, before you read anything else, you need to understand one thing.
“The cottage was never just a cottage.
“We bought this property because of what was discovered beneath it.
“And what we discovered changed everything.”
The next paragraph was crossed out.
Not once.
Several times.
The pen had pressed so hard that the paper was almost torn.
I held it closer to the window.
Through the ink, I could make out three words.
They are watching.
I felt the room tilt slightly.
Below the crossed-out paragraph, Renee had written:
“There’s a storage room downstairs.
“The brass key Patricia gave you opens it.
“But before you go inside, you must find the photograph of Dad in the hallway.
“Behind it is something you need to see.
“Please, Mom, don’t open the storage room until you’ve watched the recording.
“And whatever happens, do not trust anyone who tells you the property should be sold immediately.
“Not even if they say they’re acting on my instructions.”
I read those final words three times.
Someone had already suggested selling.
Me.
I had planned to sell the property the moment I inherited it.
Had Renee anticipated that?
Or was she warning me about someone else?
I lowered the letter.
The house seemed to grow quieter.
I could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere upstairs.
I stood and walked into the hallway.
There were six framed photographs hanging along the wall.
One showed the coastline.
Another showed Renee and Thomas on their wedding day.
A third showed Daniel standing beside his fishing boat.
I stopped.
It was a photograph I had never seen.
Daniel looked younger than I remembered him during his final years. His hair was thick and dark, his smile relaxed. Behind him was a small harbor with brightly painted fishing boats.
He was wearing his old green jacket.
I knew that jacket.
He had worn it every autumn.
But I didn’t recognize the harbor.
I lifted the frame from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow recessed compartment.
Inside lay a small black device and a folded piece of paper.
The device looked like a portable video player.
A label was attached to the back.
“PLAY FIRST.”
I unfolded the paper.
It contained a single sentence:
“Mom, what you’re about to see is why we couldn’t let you visit.”
I carried the device back to the living room.
My hands were shaking badly enough that I almost dropped it.
I sat on the sofa and pressed the power button.
The screen flickered.
For several seconds, it remained black.
Then Renee appeared.
I gasped.
She was sitting at the kitchen island of this very house.
Her hair was pulled into a loose bun. She wore a gray sweater I recognized from our last Christmas video call.
Thomas sat beside her.
They looked tired.
More than tired.
They looked frightened.
Renee leaned toward the camera.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her voice broke me.
I had spent weeks trying not to remember how she sounded.
And now there she was.
Alive on a screen.
Looking directly at me.
“Before anything else,” she said, “I need you to know that I love you. I love you more than I ever managed to say.”
I covered my mouth.
“Thomas and I have recorded this message because we don’t know whether we’ll be able to explain everything in person.”
Thomas reached for her hand.
Renee took a slow breath.
“Four years ago, when we purchased this property, we believed we were buying an old cottage with a beautiful view. The previous owner had died, and the estate wanted a quick sale.
“During the inspection, we discovered an unusual ventilation system in the basement. It wasn’t part of the original construction.
“There were sealed rooms beneath the foundation.”
She paused.
Thomas leaned forward.
“What we found there didn’t belong in a private residence,” he said quietly.
The screen changed.
A photograph appeared.
It showed a concrete corridor illuminated by bright overhead lights.
Heavy metal doors lined both sides.
Yellow warning signs had been bolted to the walls.
At the end of the corridor stood an enormous steel cabinet.
Renee’s voice continued.
“We thought it was an abandoned research facility. We contacted the provincial authorities.
“But before anyone came to inspect it, someone contacted us.”
Another image appeared.
A printed letter.
Most of the text was blurred, but one sentence remained visible.
“YOU HAVE ENTERED PROPERTY THAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE DISCOVERED.”
My stomach tightened.
The video returned to Renee.
“We were told to stop asking questions,” she said. “And when we refused, someone began following Thomas.”
Thomas looked down.
“A car waited outside our apartment three nights in a row,” he said. “Someone broke into my office. Nothing was stolen. They just moved things around so I’d know they’d been there.”
Renee swallowed.
“Then someone sent us a photograph of you.”
I went completely still.
The video cut to an image of my own house in Thunder Bay.
My front garden.
My blue front door.
My car parked in the driveway.
The photograph had been taken from across the street.
Beneath it, someone had written:
“YOUR MOTHER STILL WALKS AT SEVEN EVERY MORNING.”
I stopped breathing.
I remembered those mornings.
For decades, I had followed the same route along the lakeshore.
I had always felt safe.
I had never imagined someone might be watching.
Renee began crying on the screen.
“That’s when we decided you could never come here. Not until we understood who was behind this.”
Thomas squeezed her hand.
“We also realized we couldn’t abandon the property,” he said. “There was something beneath it that people had worked very hard to hide.”
Renee wiped her cheeks.
“At first, we thought the secret was chemical contamination. The underground rooms contained old monitoring equipment, sample containers, and records that appeared to document years of environmental testing.
“But the records were incomplete.
“And some of the names were familiar.”
She hesitated.
“One name, especially.”
The camera angle shifted slightly.
Renee looked directly into the lens.
“Mom, I need you to listen carefully.”
I leaned closer.
“One of the people connected to the original project was Dad.”
The room seemed to vanish around me.
Daniel.
My Daniel.
My husband of thirty-six years.
The man who had taught Renee to ride a bicycle.
The man who made terrible jokes at dinner and cried when she graduated from university.
The man who spent his final months apologizing because cancer had made him too weak to help around the house.
I shook my head.
“No,” I whispered.
Renee’s face was pale.
“I know this sounds impossible. We thought it was a mistake too. Dad was an electrical systems technician. He worked on infrastructure contracts for years.
“But there are documents in the storage room showing that he worked on this property long before we bought it.”
I stared at the photograph of Daniel still resting on the table.
He had never mentioned Cape Breton.
Never.
In thirty-six years of marriage, he had talked about work trips to Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, and northern Ontario.
But not here.
Not this cottage.
Not this stretch of coastline.
On the screen, Thomas spoke again.
“Margaret, we don’t believe Daniel was responsible for what happened here. We think he may have been trying to expose it.”
Renee nodded.
“We found correspondence suggesting he contacted an investigative journalist shortly before his diagnosis.”
My mouth went dry.
Daniel had been diagnosed with cancer at fifty-nine.
He died fourteen months later.
I had always accepted the explanation that his illness was cruel, random, and devastating.
But Renee’s next words made my blood turn cold.
“Mom, we can’t prove that Dad’s illness was connected to his work. Please don’t jump to that conclusion. But some of the medical and exposure records we found raise questions we haven’t been able to answer.”
I pressed a hand against my chest.
Questions.
How many questions had my daughter been carrying alone?
How many nights had she lain awake thinking about her father’s death?
And how many times had she spoken to me about ordinary things, knowing that something terrible might be hidden beneath the surface of our family history?
The video continued.
“We’ve copied everything,” Renee said. “And we’ve arranged for independent experts to review the evidence. Some have already confirmed that the old monitoring records show serious irregularities.
“But there’s something else.
“Something I still don’t understand.”
She looked toward Thomas.
He nodded.
Renee turned back to the camera.
“Three weeks ago, we discovered a room that had been sealed behind a false wall.”
A photograph appeared.
It showed a small concrete chamber.
No windows.
No furniture.
Only a narrow metal desk and a tall cabinet.
On the desk rested a cardboard box.
Written across the box were two words.
MARGARET WELLET.
I stared.
My name.
On a box inside an underground room I had never known existed.
“At first, we thought it belonged to someone else,” Renee said. “But inside were photographs of you, copies of old letters, and documents dating back to before I was born.”
I felt my pulse pounding in my ears.
“Mom, there were things in that box that Dad had kept hidden from both of us.”
The video went black for several seconds.
When Renee reappeared, her face was wet with tears.
“I don’t want you to think he didn’t love you. He did. Everything I’ve discovered tells me that he loved you more than anything.
“But there are parts of his life he never told us about.”
Thomas spoke gently.
“Renee, we should tell her about the letter.”
She nodded.
Then she lifted a sealed envelope toward the camera.
It was yellowed with age.
Across the front, in handwriting I recognized immediately, were the words:
“To my wife, Margaret. Only if the truth becomes dangerous.”
I made a sound I didn’t recognize.
Daniel’s handwriting.
I would have known it anywhere.
Renee lowered the envelope.
“We found this in the box,” she whispered. “We haven’t opened it.”
She looked straight at the camera.
“It’s yours, Mom.”
The recording paused.
A message appeared.
“INSERT THE BRASS KEY INTO THE STORAGE ROOM LOCK TO CONTINUE.”
I stared at the screen.
The recording wasn’t finished.
There was more.
And somehow, my daughter had arranged for the rest to be accessible only after I entered the room.
I looked toward the hallway.
A narrow staircase descended beside the kitchen.
I had noticed it earlier but assumed it led to an ordinary basement.
Now it seemed like the entrance to another life.
I picked up the brass key.
My hands had finally stopped shaking.
Not because I was calm.
Because something inside me had changed.
For weeks, grief had made me feel powerless.
I had lost my only child.
I had lost the future I imagined for her.
I had spent nights staring at the ceiling, wishing for one more conversation.
Now, suddenly, she was asking me to do something.
And I would not turn away.
I stood.
The staircase was narrow but brightly lit.
At the bottom, a short hallway led to two doors.
The first was wooden.
The second was heavy steel.
A small brass plate beside the steel door read:
STORAGE ROOM.
I approached it slowly.
The metal was cool beneath my fingertips.
The lock looked ordinary enough.
I inserted the key.
It turned smoothly.
Somewhere behind the door, a mechanism clicked.
Then a low mechanical sound began.
The door released.
I pushed.
At first, it barely moved.
Then it swung inward, revealing a room unlike anything I had ever seen.
The walls were lined with metal shelves.
Hundreds of labeled folders filled the shelves.
There were sealed sample containers, storage boxes, and stacks of archival documents.
A large desk stood against the far wall.
On it were three computer monitors.
All were dark.
At the center of the room was a smaller wooden table.
A single box rested on top.
My name was written across it.
MARGARET WELLET.
I stepped toward it.
The box was old, its edges softened by years of handling.
I lifted the lid.
Inside were photographs, letters, and a small blue notebook.
And resting on top of everything was the yellowed envelope Renee had shown me in the video.
Daniel’s letter.
I picked it up.
For several moments, I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
My husband had been gone for nearly eight years.
I had spent those years believing I knew everything important about the man I married.
What could he possibly have hidden from me?
I slid one finger beneath the envelope flap.
The paper tore softly.
Inside were four handwritten pages.
The first began:
“My dearest Margaret,
“If you’re reading this, then I’ve failed to keep the past where it belongs.
“I wanted to tell you so many times. Every year I waited, the truth became harder to explain.
“But you deserve to know why I was afraid.
“And why I made the decision that changed our lives before we ever met.”
I frowned.
Before we ever met?
Daniel and I had met at a community theater fundraiser in Thunder Bay.
I was twenty-three.
He was twenty-seven.
He told me he had recently transferred for work.
We had fallen in love slowly, through coffee dates and weekend walks.
What decision could he have made before then that would affect me?
I continued reading.
“Twenty-nine years before my death, I was hired as a technician on a restricted environmental monitoring project in Nova Scotia.
“The work was described as a routine systems installation. We were told the testing equipment monitored groundwater and atmospheric conditions.
“But the data didn’t match the explanations.”
I turned the page.
“We discovered that several monitoring stations had recorded chemical concentrations far above the limits we were told to expect. Some records were changed before being sent to inspectors.
“I was young. I was frightened. And I made the mistake of thinking someone else would report it.
“When I finally tried, I learned how much power the people involved possessed.”
My eyes moved faster.
“I kept copies of everything. Enough to prove what was happening, or so I believed.
“But one evening, a man came to my apartment carrying a photograph.
“It was a picture of a young woman leaving a university library.
“He told me her safety depended on my silence.”
I stopped.
A young woman.
A university library.
My heart began to hammer.
Daniel’s next sentence made the room sway.
“That woman was you, Margaret.”
I lowered the pages.
“No,” I whispered.
I read it again.
That woman was you.
My husband had known about me before we met.
Someone had shown him my photograph.
Someone had threatened me.
But why?
I forced myself to continue.
“I had never spoken to you. I didn’t even know your name until that night.
“I was told your father had information the project directors wanted, and that you were the easiest way to force his cooperation.
“I didn’t understand why they had chosen me as the messenger.
“Later, I learned that I was supposed to approach you, gain your trust, and discover what your father knew.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
My father.
Arthur Bellamy.
A quiet accountant who had worked for a provincial government contractor.
He died when I was thirty-one.
A sudden heart attack, the doctors said.
I remembered very little about his work.
He had always told me it was boring.
Budgets.
Invoices.
Audits.
Numbers.
I had never questioned it.
Daniel’s handwriting continued across the page.
“I refused to help them.
“But then I made another mistake.
“I thought I could protect you better if I stayed close.
“I arranged to meet you through someone involved in the theater fundraiser.
“At first, I told myself I was simply making sure you were safe.
“But then I fell in love with you.
“And everything became infinitely more complicated.”
I sat down heavily in the nearest chair.
Our first meeting.
The coffee he had spilled.
The way he had apologized and offered to buy me another.
The evening I had described to friends as fate.
Had it all been arranged?
Had my entire marriage begun with a lie?
Tears blurred the page.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Daniel had written.
“You are wondering whether our marriage was real.
“Margaret, every day I loved you was real.
“Every ordinary breakfast, every argument over the thermostat, every birthday cake, every long night we spent worrying about Renee.
“Those were the truest parts of my life.
“But I never found the courage to tell you how we met.”
I pressed the letter against my chest.
Anger rose beneath the grief.
Not the sharp kind of anger that disappears after a few minutes.
Something deeper.
Something that made me feel as though the floor beneath my memories had cracked.
For thirty-six years, Daniel had known.
He had known how our story began.
He had known something about my father that I didn’t.
And he had taken those secrets to his grave.
I wanted to scream at him.
I wanted to hold him.
I wanted to ask why he hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me the truth.
Instead, I turned to the final page.
“After your father died, I continued trying to discover what had happened to the records he had collected.
“I believed he had hidden copies somewhere.
“I never found them.
“But before his death, he told me something I have never forgotten.
“He said, ‘If Margaret ever learns what the lighthouse means, she’ll understand why we had to leave.’”
I froze.
The lighthouse.
A memory surfaced so suddenly that I almost dropped the letter.
When I was a child, my father used to tell me stories about a lighthouse on the Atlantic coast.
He called it the lighthouse at the end of the world.
He said the sea there was so blue it looked like glass.
He promised that one day he would take me.
But we never went.
After he died, I found a small painting of a lighthouse among his belongings.
I had kept it for years.
It still hung above the staircase in my house in Thunder Bay.
I had never understood why he loved that particular place.
Now, standing underground in a cottage overlooking the Atlantic coastline, I began to wonder.
Was it here?
Was the lighthouse somewhere nearby?
I looked back at the letter.
Daniel’s final words were written in smaller, uneven handwriting.
“I’ve left a record of everything I know.
“If you ever find it, please remember that the most dangerous secrets are not always the ones buried underground.
“Sometimes they’re the ones hidden inside families.
“And Margaret, there is something about Renee that I should have told you long ago.
“I pray you discover it from someone kinder than the people who used it against me.
“Forgive me.
“Daniel.”
My breath stopped.
Something about Renee?
I read that sentence again.
And again.
What could Daniel possibly have meant?
Renee was our daughter.
I had carried her for nine months.
I had raised her.
I knew every childhood illness, every favorite toy, every heartbreak.
What secret could concern her?
I set the letter down.
My hands were trembling again.
Then I noticed the blue notebook beneath the other papers.
Its cover was worn, and the corners had curled.
I opened it.
The first page contained a list of dates.
Most were from the years before Renee was born.
But one date had been circled in red.
October 17.
The day Renee was born.
Beside it was a name.
Not Renee.
A different name.
ELISE.
I stared at the word.
Beneath it was a short notation.
“Infant identification discrepancy. Original record withheld.”
My stomach tightened.
I flipped to the next page.
There was a photocopy of a hospital record.
The document was old and partially faded.
I could make out the hospital name, several handwritten notes, and two identification numbers.
One matched the number on Renee’s birth certificate.
The other had been circled.
Beside it someone had written:
“VERIFY BEFORE CONTACTING MOTHER.”
I felt suddenly sick.
I remembered Renee’s birth clearly.
The long labor.
The bright hospital lights.
The exhaustion.
The moment a nurse placed a tiny pink bundle in my arms.
I remembered every detail.
Or I thought I did.
I turned another page.
There was a photograph of two newborn babies lying in separate hospital bassinets.
Both wore pale pink blankets.
Both had dark hair.
A handwritten note beneath the photograph read:
“October 17, 6:42 a.m. and 6:49 a.m.”
Seven minutes apart.
I brought the photograph closer.
One bassinet had a name card reading WELLLET.
The other read BELLAMY.
My maiden name.
I stopped breathing.
Bellamy.
Why was my maiden name on a second baby’s bassinet?
I looked toward the shelves.
Hundreds of folders.
Years of hidden records.
Then I heard a voice.
“Mrs. Wellet?”
I spun around.
A man stood in the open doorway.
He was in his late fifties, broad-shouldered, with silver hair and a weathered face. He wore a dark jacket and held a leather folder against his chest.
I hadn’t heard him enter the house.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He raised both hands slightly.
“My name is Gabriel Mercer. I helped Renee and Thomas maintain this property.”
I backed away from the table.
“How did you get inside?”
“I have a key to the main entrance. Patricia told me you might arrive this week.”
“Why didn’t she tell me about you?”
His expression changed.
“She should have.”
He glanced toward the open box.
Then toward Daniel’s letter.
A strange look passed across his face.
“You found it.”
I tightened my grip on the notebook.
“What is this place?”
Gabriel didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he walked to the doorway and looked back toward the staircase.
“Before we talk, I need to know whether anyone followed you here.”
“What?”
“On the road. Did you notice another car behind you?”
“No.”
“Did you stop anywhere after leaving Sydney?”
“Only for fuel.”
He seemed to relax slightly.
“Good.”
“Stop asking me questions,” I snapped. “My daughter is dead. My son-in-law is dead. I’ve discovered that my husband lied to me for decades, and now a stranger has walked into a locked basement and started interrogating me. I want answers.”
Gabriel looked at me for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
“You’re right.”
He placed his leather folder on the desk.
“Renee told me that if anything happened to her, I was to come here when you arrived.”
My throat tightened.
“She expected to die?”
“No,” he said quickly. “She was trying to make sure the information survived if something happened. That’s different.”
He opened the folder.
Inside were several printed documents.
One was a photograph of my father.
I recognized him instantly.
Arthur Bellamy stood beside a younger Daniel and three men I had never seen.
They were standing outside a concrete building.
The photograph was dated nearly forty years earlier.
I looked up.
“My father knew Daniel?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Long before you met him.”
“Why didn’t either of them tell me?”
“Because the work they were involved in was dangerous. And because they made decisions they later regretted.”
I stared at the photograph.
Two men I had loved.
Two men who had shaped my life.
Standing side by side before I knew they had ever met.
Gabriel pulled out another document.
“This was the last thing Renee asked me to find.”
It was a copy of an old hospital admission record.
My name appeared at the top.
Margaret Bellamy Wellet.
My date of birth.
My address at the time.
Then a section marked MATERNITY.
I saw Renee’s birth date.
And beneath it, an entry that made my entire body go cold.
“DELIVERY RECORD: MULTIPLE BIRTH.”
I looked at Gabriel.
“No.”
He said nothing.
“No,” I repeated. “That’s impossible.”
“Margaret…”
“I gave birth to one baby.”
His face tightened.
“That’s what you were told.”
I shook my head.
“No. I would remember. I would know.”
“You were under general anesthesia following an emergency complication. The original file includes a note about a second infant.”
I couldn’t hear the ocean anymore.
I couldn’t hear the mechanical hum of the room.
There was only one sentence repeating in my head.
A second infant.
I gripped the edge of the table.
“Are you telling me Renee had a twin?”
Gabriel looked down.
“That’s what Renee believed the records showed.”
My legs felt weak.
“Where is she?”
He didn’t answer.
“Where is my other daughter?”
Gabriel looked toward the hallway.
Then he closed the storage room door.
The sound of the latch made me flinch.
“Margaret, I need you to understand that we haven’t independently confirmed every part of the birth records. Renee was trying to trace the second child. She found evidence suggesting the infant survived.”
“Then where is she?”
Gabriel’s voice became very quiet.
“That’s the question Renee was trying to answer when she died.”
I sat down.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
A second child.
Another daughter.
Someone who might have lived an entire life without knowing I existed.
Someone who might have spent birthdays wondering about her mother.
Someone I had never held.
Never named.
Never searched for.
Because I had never known she was there.
I covered my face.
Gabriel pulled out a chair but did not sit.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I lowered my hands.
“Why would anyone do this?”
“We don’t know the whole reason. The records suggest your father tried to intervene. Daniel helped him. But the documentation was altered, and the people involved disappeared from the official files.”
“Who took her?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Renee believed there was a connection between the missing infant and the organization operating beneath this property.”
I stared at him.
“You’re telling me someone took my baby because of a research project?”
“I’m telling you that’s one possibility Renee was investigating. We need evidence before we can say more.”
I looked at the notebook again.
Two bassinets.
Two names.
Two birth times.
One life I remembered.
One life I had never known.
Then Gabriel said something that made me look up.
“There’s another reason Renee kept you away from this house.”
I felt the air leave my lungs.
“What reason?”
He reached into his jacket and removed a photograph.
It was recent.
A woman stood outside a small café, wearing a green coat and holding a paper coffee cup.
She appeared to be in her late thirties.
Dark hair.
High cheekbones.
A familiar smile.
My heart nearly stopped.
She looked like Renee.
Not exactly.
But close enough that I felt a sharp, impossible recognition.
“Who is she?” I whispered.
Gabriel placed the photograph on the table.
“Her name is Elise Bellamy.”
The name from the notebook.
I stared.
“Renee found her?”
Gabriel nodded.
“She located her approximately eighteen months ago.”
“Did she speak to her?”
“Yes.”
My hands flew to my mouth.
“Then why didn’t she tell me?”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“Because Elise had been told a very different story about you.”
I could barely speak.
“What story?”
He looked down at the photograph.
“She believed you had given her away.”
I felt as though someone had struck me.
“No.”
“She believed you knew about her.”
“No.”
“She was told that you had chosen Renee and abandoned her.”
Tears spilled down my face.
“That’s not true.”
“I know.”
“That’s not true!” I cried.
My voice echoed against the concrete walls.
Gabriel waited until I could breathe again.
Then he said, “Renee tried to explain. She showed Elise some of the records. But Elise didn’t trust them. She thought Renee was helping protect the family’s reputation.”
I stared at the photograph.
The woman had my eyes.
My mother’s eyes.
Eyes I had seen in family photographs my entire life.
“Where is she now?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“That’s complicated.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me where she is.”
He looked toward the closed door again.
“Margaret, there is something you need to know about Elise before you meet her.”
I stood.
“I don’t care what she’s done. I don’t care who raised her. I don’t care whether she hates me. If she is my daughter, I want to see her.”
Gabriel’s eyes filled with something I couldn’t identify.
Concern.
Fear.
Perhaps pity.
“Renee said you would react exactly like that.”
“Then she knew me.”
He nodded.
“She did.”
He pulled one final sheet from the folder.
It was a printed email.
The sender’s name was partially obscured, but the subject line was clear.
“FINAL WARNING REGARDING MARGARET WELLET.”
The message contained only a few sentences.
“If Margaret enters the property, the original files will become accessible.
“Elise must not be allowed to reach her first.
“The family has already suffered enough.”
I read it twice.
Then looked up.
“Who sent this?”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“We’re still trying to establish that.”
“When?”
“Eleven days before Renee and Thomas were killed.”
I froze.
Eleven days.
The warning had arrived less than two weeks before the accident.
The transport truck.
The icy road.
The phone call from Patricia.
The terrible certainty that my daughter and her husband had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I stared at Gabriel.
“Do you think their deaths were connected?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“The police investigation described a traffic collision. I have no evidence that contradicts that conclusion.”
“But you suspect something.”
“I suspect Renee was getting close to finding answers that certain people didn’t want her to find.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who?”
Gabriel slowly closed the folder.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to determine.”
A sudden chime sounded somewhere in the room.
Both of us turned.
One of the computer monitors had illuminated.
A message appeared.
“EXTERNAL ACCESS REQUEST RECEIVED.”
Gabriel’s expression changed instantly.
“That’s not supposed to happen.”
He moved toward the desk and touched the keyboard.
Another message appeared.
“ARCHIVE ACCESS: REMOTE USER.”
Then:
“IDENTITY VERIFIED.”
Gabriel went pale.
“That’s impossible.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
The monitor changed again.
A photograph filled the screen.
It was the same woman in the green coat.
Elise.
Beneath her photograph appeared a single line.
“AUTHORIZED USER: ELISE BELLAMY.”
I stared at the screen.
“She’s trying to access the files?”
Gabriel’s hands moved quickly over the keyboard.
“I don’t know how she obtained the credentials.”
A new message appeared.
“VIDEO CONNECTION REQUESTED.”
Gabriel stopped typing.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then a woman’s voice came through the speakers.
“Gabriel?”
He went completely still.
The voice was soft.
Low.
Strangely familiar.
“Gabriel, I know you’re there.”
My heart began to pound.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
Then the woman spoke again.
“Is she with you?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“Elise…”
“Don’t lie to me.”
A pause.
Then:
“Is my mother in that house?”
I stepped forward before Gabriel could answer.
“Yes.”
My voice shook.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Silence.
Long enough that I wondered whether the connection had failed.
Then I heard someone inhale sharply.
“Margaret?”
I closed my eyes.
“Elise?”
Another silence.
And then, in a voice filled with a pain I could barely comprehend, she whispered:
“I’ve been waiting thirty-eight years to hear your voice.”
I started crying.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t know.”
No answer.
“I swear to you, I didn’t know you existed.”
The silence stretched.
Then Elise said something that stopped my tears.
“I know.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“I know you didn’t abandon me.”
My heart lifted painfully.
“Then why…”
“Because Renee finally proved it.”
I looked at Gabriel.
His expression had become unreadable.
Elise continued.
“She found the original hospital records. She found the people who altered them. And she discovered why they separated us.”
I gripped the desk.
“Why?”
There was a rustling sound on the connection.
Then Elise spoke.
“Margaret, I need you to listen very carefully. You are not safe in that house.”
Gabriel moved closer to the screen.
“Elise, where are you?”
“Somewhere I can see the driveway.”
I turned toward the ceiling, as though I could look through the floors to the windows above.
“You’re here?”
“Not inside.”
“Then come in. Please. I want to see you.”
Her voice cracked.
“I want that too.”
“Then come.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Because I don’t know whether the man standing beside you is still telling the truth.”
I turned toward Gabriel.
His face drained of color.
“What does she mean?”
Elise’s voice became urgent.
“Margaret, look at the folder Gabriel brought you.”
I stared at the leather folder.
“Yes?”
“Look at the photograph of your father and Daniel.”
I pulled it out.
The four men stood outside the concrete building.
My father.
Daniel.
Three others.
I had been so focused on the two faces I recognized that I had barely noticed the rest.
“Look at the man on the far right,” Elise whispered.
I moved closer to the light.
He was much younger than Gabriel.
Dark hair.
Narrow shoulders.
A sharp nose.
But the eyes…
I slowly raised my head.
Gabriel stood perfectly still.
His face had gone gray.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
The man in the photograph was Gabriel.
Not merely someone who resembled him.
Gabriel himself.
I looked from the picture to the man standing across from me.
“You knew my father?”
He said nothing.
“You knew Daniel?”
Still nothing.
On the computer, Elise spoke again.
“Margaret, Gabriel didn’t just help Renee maintain that cottage.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Elise, please.”
But she continued.
“He was part of the original project.”
I backed away from him.
“Is that true?”
Gabriel opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“Answer me!”
“Yes,” he whispered.
I felt the room spin.
“You stood here and let me believe you were just helping my daughter?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
The words hit me like a slap.
The same explanation.
The same excuse.
My father had hidden things to protect me.
Daniel had lied to protect me.
Renee had kept me away to protect me.
And now this stranger was using those same words.
I was sick of being protected by people who refused to tell me the truth.
“Protect me from what?” I demanded.
Gabriel looked toward the monitor.
“From what happened to Elise.”
The voice from the speakers became almost inaudible.
“Tell her, Gabriel.”
He shook his head.
“Not like this.”
“Tell her.”
Gabriel gripped the edge of the desk.
Then he looked at me.
“Margaret, thirty-eight years ago, your father discovered that a group involved in the monitoring program had been falsifying records and concealing dangerous exposure incidents. He began gathering evidence.
“At the same time, someone learned he was planning to contact investigators.”
I stared at him.
“What does that have to do with my daughters?”
Gabriel’s face twisted.
“Your father was threatened. The people involved wanted the documents he had collected. They believed he might have hidden them with someone close to him.”
“With me?”
“Yes.”
“But I knew nothing!”
“I know.”
Gabriel swallowed.
“When the twins were born, someone arranged for one infant to be removed from the hospital under a falsified transfer record. They used the child to pressure your father into surrendering what he knew.”
My knees nearly buckled.
“Elise?”
He nodded.
“Your father tried to get her back. Daniel helped him.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“Then why didn’t they?”
Gabriel looked away.
“Because by the time they located her, she had been moved again. The people responsible had erased the records linking her to you.”
The room became terribly quiet.
I thought about my father.
His sudden heart attack.
His quiet manner.
The way he had hugged Renee for a little too long during her first birthday.
Had he been thinking of the other little girl?
The granddaughter he had failed to bring home?
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
“Did Daniel know the whole time?”
Gabriel nodded.
“He knew there had been another infant. He was told she had died after the transfer.”
I felt something break inside me.
My husband had known I had given birth to twins.
He had allowed me to believe there had been only one baby.
He had let me mourn my father’s death without knowing what had happened.
And he had never told me.
“Why?” I whispered.
Gabriel’s voice was heavy.
“Because he believed telling you would put Renee in danger too.”
I shook my head.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Then Elise interrupted.
“Margaret, we can talk about all of this later. Right now, you need to leave.”
I looked toward the monitor.
“Where are you?”
“Close enough to help.”
“Help with what?”
A sharp sound came through the speakers.
Like a car door slamming.
Then Elise whispered:
“Oh, no.”
Gabriel straightened.
“What?”
“They’re here.”
My blood ran cold.
“Who?”
Elise didn’t answer.
Instead, I heard the unmistakable sound of an engine.
Then another.
Gabriel hurried toward the storage room door.
“Margaret, stay here.”
I grabbed his arm.
“Absolutely not. I’m not letting anyone else decide what I can and cannot know.”
He looked at me.
For a moment, I saw genuine fear in his eyes.
“Then you need to understand something. The archive can transmit its contents to the investigators Renee selected. But the system requires a second authorization.”
I frowned.
“Whose?”
He looked toward the old box.
“Yours.”
“Why mine?”
“Because Renee designed it that way. She wanted you to make the final decision.”
Another chime sounded.
The computer displayed a message.
“ARCHIVE TRANSMISSION READY.”
Below it:
“SECOND AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.”
Then a line appeared.
“ENTER THE NAME GIVEN TO YOU BY ARTHUR BELLAMY.”
I stared.
The name my father gave me?
What name?
My father had called me many things.
Maggie.
Sweetheart.
Little sparrow.
But there was one name he had used only when telling me stories.
A name I hadn’t heard in nearly forty years.
I whispered it.
“Keeper.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“What?”
“He called me his little keeper.”
I remembered sitting on his knee while he told stories about the lighthouse.
He would always finish by touching my nose and saying, “Every lighthouse needs a keeper, Maggie. And one day, you might have to be mine.”
I turned to the keyboard.
Typed the word.
KEEPER.
The screen flashed.
“AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED.”
I stared.
Then another message appeared.
“IDENTITY CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.”
A small camera mounted above the monitor switched on.
“PLEASE FACE THE CAMERA.”
I looked at Gabriel.
“Is this safe?”
He hesitated.
“I can’t guarantee it. But this is the system Renee prepared.”
I took a breath and faced the camera.
A light blinked.
Then the screen displayed:
“MARGARET WELLET VERIFIED.”
“ARCHIVE DECRYPTION INITIATED.”
A progress bar appeared.
Five percent.
Twelve.
Twenty.
From the speakers, Elise’s voice became frantic.
“Margaret, you need to get out of there before they reach the house!”
I looked at Gabriel.
“Who is coming?”
He moved toward the door.
Then stopped.
We heard footsteps overhead.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
Not one person.
Several.
My heart began hammering.
Gabriel reached into his pocket and removed a small key fob.
He pressed a button.
A steel bolt slid across the storage room door.
The sound echoed through the basement.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Buying us time.”
The computer chimed.
“DECRYPTION: 46%.”
Then a loud thud came from upstairs.
Someone had entered the house.
I heard a man’s voice.
Muffled.
Another voice answered.
Then footsteps crossed the kitchen floor.
Gabriel moved beside the door and listened.
Elise whispered through the speakers.
“They know you’re in the basement.”
The progress bar reached sixty-three percent.
I stared at the screen.
“How long?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
A heavy blow struck the steel door.
I screamed.
Another blow.
The door trembled in its frame.
A man’s voice called from the hallway.
“Mrs. Wellet! Open the door!”
Gabriel looked at me sharply.
“Don’t answer.”
The voice came again.
“Mrs. Wellet, this is Detective Andrew Collins with the Nova Scotia RCMP. We need to speak with you immediately.”
Police?
I turned toward Gabriel.
“Why would the police be here?”
He said nothing.
The man outside continued.
“We received a report that you may be in danger. Please open the door.”
Elise’s voice cut through the speakers.
“Margaret, don’t open it!”
I looked between the locked door and the monitor.
“How do I know who to trust?”
No one answered.
The progress bar reached eighty-one percent.
The man outside knocked again.
“Mrs. Wellet, we have reason to believe the person inside with you may be connected to an ongoing investigation.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“That’s a lie.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me who you really were?” I demanded.
He looked at me.
And for the first time since meeting him, he had no answer.
The computer chimed again.
“DECRYPTION: 94%.”
Outside, the officer spoke once more.
“Mrs. Wellet, we are investigating the deaths of Renee and Thomas Bozlet.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
Gabriel went completely still.
The voice continued.
“We have new information concerning the transport truck involved in their collision.”
I felt my legs weaken.
New information?
About the accident?
“Please,” the man said, “we need to speak with you.”
The progress bar reached ninety-nine percent.
Then stopped.
The monitor flickered.
A final message appeared.
“ARCHIVE DECRYPTED.”
“TRANSMISSION PENDING.”
“CONFIRM RELEASE OF ALL FILES?”
Two buttons appeared.
YES.
NO.
I looked toward Gabriel.
Then toward the locked door.
Then at the photograph of Elise still visible on the second monitor.
For four years, Renee had lied to me about this house.
For thirty-six years, Daniel had hidden the truth about our marriage.
For nearly four decades, someone had kept my other daughter from me.
I had spent my entire life trusting people who told me they knew what was best.
And every one of those decisions had cost me something.
My voice was surprisingly steady when I spoke.
“No more secrets.”
I pressed YES.
The screen flashed.
“TRANSMISSION INITIATED.”
Outside, the knocking stopped.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
Then Elise screamed through the speakers.
“Margaret! Get away from the door!”
A deafening crash shook the room.
The overhead lights flickered.
Gabriel grabbed my arm.
And the steel door began to open.
But what happened next was not what I expected.
A man stepped into the doorway wearing a dark police jacket.
Behind him stood a second officer.
The first man raised his hands.
“Mrs. Wellet, please remain calm. We’re here to help.”
I stared at him.
He was tall, with closely cropped gray hair and a tired face.
His identification was clipped to his jacket.
DETECTIVE ANDREW COLLINS.
Gabriel stood between us.
“You have no authority to enter this room.”
The detective looked past him toward me.
“Mrs. Wellet, your daughter contacted us before her death.”
My heart stopped.
“Renee?”
He nodded.
“She provided evidence of threats connected to this property.”
I gripped the desk.
“Then why didn’t you protect her?”
Pain crossed his face.
“We didn’t know how immediate the danger was.”
“She’s dead,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“And her husband.”
“I know.”
My voice rose.
“Then what good were your investigations?”
The detective lowered his eyes.
For a moment, he looked less like an officer and more like a man who had been carrying a terrible failure.
Then he looked at Gabriel.
“Mr. Mercer, I need you to step aside.”
Gabriel didn’t move.
“Not until you tell me why you’re here.”
Collins reached into his jacket.
He removed a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a small electronic device.
It looked like a memory card.
“We recovered this from the transport truck involved in the collision.”
I stared at it.
“What is it?”
“A data-storage device found inside an aftermarket tracking unit.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
Collins continued.
“The truck’s driver told investigators he had been instructed to stop at a service area shortly before the collision. He says someone approached the vehicle while he was inside paying for fuel.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then what did you find?”
Collins hesitated.
“The tracking unit had recorded route data that differed from the driver’s original account. We are examining whether the vehicle’s movements were altered or misrepresented.”
Gabriel exhaled sharply.
“That doesn’t prove the collision was deliberate.”
“No,” Collins replied. “It doesn’t. But it gives us reason to reopen several questions.”
I looked toward the monitor.
The transmission bar had reached one hundred percent.
“ARCHIVE TRANSMITTED.”
“RECIPIENTS CONFIRMED.”
A list appeared.
Several independent legal offices.
Two forensic laboratories.
An environmental investigation organization.
And one recipient I recognized.
PATRICIA DUVAL.
The attorney who had handed me the key.
Collins looked at the screen.
“Mrs. Wellet, what did you just send?”
I swallowed.
“Everything my daughter wanted the world to know.”
A long silence followed.
Then the speakers crackled.
Elise’s voice returned.
“Margaret?”
I turned.
“I’m here.”
“Did it finish?”
“Yes.”
I heard her begin to cry.
For the first time, I understood how much this had cost her too.
“Then Renee did it,” she whispered.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
“Yes.”
Elise breathed shakily.
“She promised me she would.”
I felt a fresh wave of grief.
My daughter had died before she could finish her work.
But she had left us the means to continue it.
I turned toward Detective Collins.
“I want to see Elise.”
He glanced at the monitor.
Then back at me.
“Who is Elise?”
Before I could answer, the woman on the speakers spoke.
“I’m the daughter Margaret was told she never had.”
Collins froze.
He looked toward Gabriel.
Then slowly toward the documents spread across the table.
For the first time since entering the room, he seemed genuinely shaken.
“That’s not possible,” he whispered.
Elise’s voice sharpened.
“That’s what they told my mother, too.”
A silence settled over the room.
Then Collins asked one question.
“Does she know?”
I frowned.
“Know what?”
He looked toward Gabriel.
Gabriel looked away.
My stomach twisted.
“Does she know what?” I repeated.
Collins removed his glasses.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Mrs. Wellet, there is something about the hospital records you need to understand.”
I felt the walls closing in.
“What?”
He looked directly at me.
“The documents your daughter found are real. But the explanation she received about the second infant may not be complete.”
I gripped the table.
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
Collins took a breath.
“The original medical file does not simply record two babies.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Then what does it record?”
He opened his evidence folder.
Removed a sheet.
And placed it before me.
At the top was the hospital’s original delivery summary.
Beneath my name were three entries.
Three times.
Three identification numbers.
I stared at them.
My mind refused to understand.
“Two babies,” I whispered. “Renee and Elise.”
Collins shook his head slowly.
“No, Mrs. Wellet.”
He pointed toward the third entry.
“According to this record, there was another infant.”
The room seemed to disappear.
I stared at the paper.
At the three numbers.
At the signature of a physician who had died decades earlier.
Then I heard Elise gasp through the speakers.
“What?”
Collins looked toward the monitor.
His voice was grave.
“Your mother gave birth to triplets.”
I felt my knees buckle.
Gabriel caught me before I fell.
But I barely noticed.
Because at the bottom of the document, beside the third infant’s identification number, was a handwritten notation.
A name.
A name I recognized.
A name belonging to someone I had spoken to less than a month earlier.
Someone who had stood across a desk and handed me a brass key.
Someone who had told me that Renee wanted me to have this cottage.
PATRICIA DUVAL.
The attorney.
I stared at the name until the letters blurred.
Then I looked up at Detective Collins.
“Why,” I whispered, “is my daughter’s lawyer listed as my third child?”
And in the terrible silence that followed, I realized the cottage had not been hiding one lost daughter.
It had been hiding two.
Worse still, one of them had known exactly who I was.
And she had been the person who sent me here.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
