Chapter 9: The Woman in Room 214
The DNA database match led to a psychiatric care facility two counties away.
A woman named Sarah Bell had been admitted there twenty-four years earlier.
She had no verified birth certificate.
No known relatives.
No history before the age of six.
Her estimated age matched Grace’s.
Marcus and I went with Detective Ruiz.
Room 214 smelled of lavender soap and antiseptic.
A thin woman sat by the window folding paper birds.
She had silver streaks in her brown hair.
When she turned toward me, I forgot how to breathe.
She had Lily’s eyes.
Not similar eyes.
The same eyes.
Sarah looked at my bracelet.
Grace’s symbol had been engraved onto a pendant around her neck.
“You came,” she whispered.
I sat beside her.
“My name is Claire.”
Her fingers stopped folding.
“Claire was the baby.”
The room became silent.
“You remember me?”
“Mommy said you would be born after Christmas.”
Tears filled my eyes.
Grace had been five when she disappeared.
Old enough to remember my mother’s pregnancy.
“What happened at the lake house?”
Sarah began trembling.
Ruiz stepped back to give her space.
“My grandfather hurt Grandma Evelyn,” Sarah said. “She found papers. Money papers.”
“What papers?”
“He was stealing from people.”
My grandfather had operated a retirement investment company.
The company collapsed before I was born.
Hundreds of families lost their savings.
He was never charged.
“Grandma said she was going to the police,” Sarah continued. “Grandpa pushed her into the water.”
“And your parents saw?”
“Daddy helped him.”
My father had helped cover up my grandmother’s murder.
“What did they do to you?”
“They locked me downstairs. Then Dr. Reed gave me medicine.”
She touched her temple.
“I woke up somewhere else. They called me Sarah.”
My mother and father had not killed Grace.
They had erased her identity and abandoned her in an institution.
Sarah looked toward the door.
“Is Lily safe?”
I froze.
“How do you know Lily?”
Sarah’s face filled with terror.
“Your mother brought her here.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
My knees weakened.
“She showed me Lily through the glass. She said if I ever told anyone my real name, the little girl would disappear like I did.”
Then the fire alarm began screaming.
May you like
Smoke poured beneath the door.
Someone had set fire to the records room.
