Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT ELIZA DISAPPEARED
Damian had spent two years hating himself for the last thing he said to his wife.
Maybe now he hated himself even more.
He sat across from Anna in the west suite.
“Tell me everything you remember.”
“I told you. It comes in pieces.”
“Start with the storm.”
She closed her eyes.
“Rain on glass.”
“Car glass?”
“I think so.”
“What else?”
“My hands hurt.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She rubbed her wrists unconsciously.
Damian noticed faint pale marks around them.
Old restraint scars.
His stomach twisted.
“You were tied up.”
Anna looked at her wrists.
“I never asked where those came from.”
Damian stared.
“Your doctor didn’t?”
“He said they were probably from the crash.”
“Who was this doctor?”
“Mercer.”
“And he kept you there how long?”
“Seven months.”
“Seven?”
“I had head trauma. I couldn’t remember anything. He said I had no identification.”
“But you had a necklace worth twenty thousand dollars.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Didn’t he check missing persons?”
“He said he did.”
Damian laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Your face was on national television.”
Anna looked sick.
“He lied to me.”
“Yes.”
She stood abruptly.
“Why?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
Damian called Marcus.
“Get everything on Saint Orla Clinic and Dr. Mercer.”
Marcus hesitated.
“I already started.”
“And?”
“There’s a problem.”
“What problem?”
“Saint Orla Clinic doesn’t exist.”
Anna turned.
“What?”
Marcus continued through the speaker.
“No registered hospital. No medical license. No private clinic under that name.”
Anna grabbed the phone.
“That’s impossible. I lived there.”
“Then it operated illegally.”
Damian’s anger sharpened.
“Find Mercer.”
“I’m trying.”
Anna walked toward the window.
All color had left her face.
Damian followed.
“After seven months, how did you leave?”
She looked out into the dark gardens.
“One night a nurse woke me up.”
“Name?”
“Rosa.”
“What did she say?”
“She said I had to run.”
“Why?”
“She was crying. She said they were going to transfer me somewhere I’d never come back from.”
Damian felt cold.
“What happened?”
“She gave me cash and a bus ticket. I left through a laundry door.”
“And you never went to police?”
“I did.”
He frowned.
“They said there was no record of Saint Orla. No record of me. They ran my fingerprints.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Of course.
Eliza Harlow had never been arrested or processed for anything requiring fingerprint entry.
Anna’s shoulders shook.
“I spent more than a year cleaning houses and working kitchens. I used the name on the bus ticket.”
“Anna Vale.”
She nodded.
“How did you end up working here?”
Her face changed.
“I saw a picture of this mansion online.”
Damian stepped closer.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You came here because of a picture?”
“I looked at it and started crying.”
She touched her chest.
“I felt like I had forgotten something important.”
Then a new voice came from the doorway.
“You did.”
They both turned.
Celeste stood there.
Behind her was Damian’s mother, Victoria Harlow.
Victoria stared at Anna as if she had seen something monstrous.
May you like
Then she said the sentence Damian never expected.
“I knew Eliza survived the crash.”
