CHAPTER 2 — THE BASEMENT ROOM
By midnight, police surrounded the Hale family home.
The mansion stood blackened against the sky, its upper floor gutted by fire. Rainwater dripped from broken windows. Yellow tape moved in the wind like warning flags.
Evie watched from inside Marcus’s unmarked car.
She should have been in the hospital.
Marcus had argued with her for twenty minutes.
She had refused to stay behind.
“That house is a crime scene,” he told her.
“It’s also my life.”
Marcus studied her face, then handed her a protective mask.
“You stay beside me.”
Fire investigators had declared the basement structurally safe. The flames had damaged the main floor, but the concrete level beneath it remained mostly untouched.
That was the first proof the fire had been deliberately controlled.
Marcus and Evie descended the narrow staircase.
The smell changed as they went lower.
Smoke gave way to bleach.
At the bottom, they found a steel door hidden behind a shelving unit.
A police technician cut through the lock.
Inside was a room Evie had never known existed.
Metal filing cabinets lined the walls. Old computer monitors sat beneath plastic covers. Shelves held medical forms, birth certificates and sealed envelopes marked with dates.
Evie pulled open the nearest drawer.
Every folder carried the name of a child.
Some were infants.
Some were teenagers.
Each file contained two documents.
A death certificate.
And an adoption record under a different name.
Marcus opened another drawer.
“My God.”
Evie found a photograph clipped inside one folder. It showed a newborn wrapped in a pink blanket.
On the back, someone had written:
TRANSFER COMPLETED. FAMILY INFORMED OF DEATH.
Evie’s hands shook.
“My parents sold children?”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Yes, we do.”
A forensic officer called from the far side of the room.
“Detective, you need to see this.”
Behind a curtain stood a hospital bassinet.
Rust covered the frame.
Beside it sat a video camera and boxes of miniature identification bracelets.
Evie recognized the logo printed on them.
St. Catherine’s Women’s Clinic.
The clinic her mother had managed for nineteen years.
Diane had always described her job as charity work for struggling mothers.
Evie picked up one bracelet.
The faded name read:
BABY GIRL CARTER.
Date of birth: May 14, 2004.
Evie’s birthday.
Her blood turned cold.
“Marcus.”
He saw the bracelet.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Evie searched the nearby files until she found a folder labeled CARTER, LENA.
Inside was a death certificate for a newborn girl.
Cause of death: respiratory failure.
Beneath it was another document.
A private adoption agreement.
Adoptive parents: Richard and Diane Hale.
The name assigned to the child:
EVELYN HALE.
Evie stared at the page until the words blurred.
Richard and Diane were not her biological parents.
They had stolen her.
Marcus gently took the file from her hands.
“We’ll confirm everything.”
Evie stepped back, unable to feel her legs.
A noise came from behind the wall.
A soft metallic scrape.
Marcus raised his weapon.
“Police! Identify yourself!”
Silence.
Then came three slow knocks.
Evie moved toward the sound.
Marcus tried to stop her, but she pressed her ear against the wall.
Someone was breathing on the other side.
The officers pulled away a metal shelf and found the outline of another hidden door.
The lock had been secured from the outside.
Just like Evie’s bedroom.
Marcus opened it.
A thin teenage girl crouched inside the dark compartment, wrists bound with plastic restraints.
Her face was bruised.
Her eyes fixed on Evie.
“You came back,” the girl whispered.
Evie knelt beside her.
“Who are you?”
The girl began to cry.
“My name is Sophie.”
May you like
She looked toward the staircase in terror.
“And your father is going to kill us both.”
