Chapter 11 - Saint Mary'sSaint Mary's Children's
Home had closed sixteen years earlier.
Officially, the building had been condemned after structural problems made it unsafe.
Unofficially, no one seemed to remember much about it.
That alone made Harper suspicious.
Old institutions usually left records.
Inspection reports.
Complaints.
Employment histories.
Insurance disputes.
Something.
Saint Mary's had almost nothing.
It was as if someone had erased it.
Brooks searched county archives.
The property had belonged to a charitable trust.
The trust dissolved fifteen years ago.
Its final director was listed as deceased.
The medical consultant attached to the facility was Victor Harrington.
Harper leaned back in her chair.
"There it is."
I looked at the map.
Saint Mary's sat nearly three hours north.
Close to the Canadian border.
Dense woods surrounded the property.
Only one public road led in.
"Grace is there."
"According to Rachel."
"You believe her?"
Harper looked at me.
"Do you?"
I had no answer.
Rachel was alive.
That should have been enough to make me trust her.
Instead, it created more questions.
Why hadn't she contacted me?
Why hadn't she contacted Emma?
Why did she know so much about the investigation?
Where had she been for seven years?
And why was she still hiding?
Harper began gathering documents.
"We don't go directly in."
"What?"
"If Victor expects us, we don't drive straight through the front gate."
"Grace is fourteen."
"I know."
"He has her."
"I know."
"Then why are we waiting?"
"Because every time we've rushed, Victor has already been ahead of us."
She tapped Saint Mary's on the map.
"This time we stop reacting."
A state tactical team assembled twenty miles south of the property.
No marked vehicles.
No sirens.
No radio chatter on standard police channels.
Only a small group knew the operation existed.
Harper excluded everyone connected to the hospital.
Everyone connected to child services.
Even several local officers.
She trusted almost no one.
I trusted even fewer.
At 5:10 a.m., a drone crossed the Saint Mary's property.
The first images appeared on Brooks' monitor.
An enormous brick building rose through the trees.
Most windows were boarded.
One section of the roof had collapsed years ago.
Vines covered the western wall.
From a distance, it looked abandoned.
Then Brooks zoomed in.
Fresh tire tracks.
A generator.
Two vehicles behind the building.
One was the black SUV Victor had abandoned earlier.
Or at least identical to it.
"Someone's there."
Harper nodded.
"Heat signatures?"
The drone switched sensors.
Three on the first floor.
One on the second.
Two below ground.
My stomach tightened.
"Grace."
"Maybe."
"Victor?"
"Maybe."
"Rachel?"
Harper looked at me.
"Maybe."
A tactical officer approached.
"We can move in from the east."
Harper nodded.
"What about underground exits?"
"Unknown."
Brooks pulled up an old architectural plan.
"Basement tunnel."
Everyone turned.
He enlarged the drawing.
Saint Mary's had once connected to a medical annex through an underground corridor.
The annex had been demolished.
But the tunnel remained.
"Where does it exit?"
Brooks traced the blueprint.
"About four hundred yards north."
Harper pointed at two officers.
"Cover it."
Then she looked at me.
"You stay here."
I didn't argue this time.
Not because I agreed.
Because I had already seen enough to understand that one reckless move could destroy everything.
The team entered the woods.
Minutes passed.
Then the radio crackled.
"East entrance secured."
Another voice.
"First floor clear."
Another.
"Movement downstairs."
I stared at the monitor.
My pulse hammered.
Then a gunshot echoed through the radio.
One shot.
Then silence.
Harper grabbed the microphone.
"Report."
Static.
"Team Two, report."
Nothing.
Then a voice returned.
"Officer down."
My stomach dropped.
"Condition?"
"Conscious."
"Shot?"
"Tranquilizer dart."
Harper looked at Brooks.
Victor had done the same thing to Vane.
"Move carefully."
Another team entered.
This time through the rear.
The basement feed appeared on a helmet camera.
Long hallway.
Old hospital tiles.
Doors on both sides.
Medical symbols faded on the walls.
Then they found the room.
A chair.
A camera.
Old restraints fixed to the floor.
Stacks of files.
No Victor.
No Grace.
But on the wall were photographs.
Dozens of children.
Some names I recognized from Diana's ledger.
Others I didn't.
And in the middle...
Grace.
A photograph taken when she was an infant.
Another at age three.
Age six.
Age nine.
Age twelve.
Victor had followed her entire life.
Harper whispered.
"Why her?"
Then the officer's camera turned.
A whiteboard covered one wall.
At the top were three words.
PROJECT INHERITANCE RESPONSE.
Below it...
Genetic charts.
Medical histories.
Family trees.
Carter.
Monroe.
Harrington.
Several other families.
My skin went cold.
Victor wasn't just tracking behavior.
He was tracking bloodlines.
Brooks stared at the screen.
"What the hell was he studying?"
A forensic doctor beside us leaned closer.
"Stress-linked cardiac markers."
Harper looked at him.
"Explain."
"Some cardiac disorders have hereditary patterns."
"Certain stress responses can also be genetically influenced."
My stomach tightened.
"Emma's heart."
The doctor nodded slowly.
"Possibly."
"Grace?"
"Maybe related."
Brooks scrolled through captured images.
Then stopped.
One chart listed Anna Carter.
Grace's mother.
Another listed Rachel.
Not biologically connected.
Another listed Emma.
A note beside her name read:
SECOND-GENERATION RESPONSE CONFIRMED.
I stared at it.
"What does that mean?"
The doctor shook his head.
"I can't say without full records."
Then the radio erupted.
"Movement!"
"North tunnel!"
Harper grabbed the microphone.
"Who?"
"Two individuals."
"One adult male."
"One teenage female."
Grace.
I stood.
"That's them."
The tactical feed shifted.
Trees.
Darkness.
Running footsteps.
Then a flashlight caught them.
Victor.
Grace beside him.
He wasn't dragging her.
She was running with him.
That stopped everyone.
"Why is she following him?"
Brooks whispered.
Harper raised her radio.
"Do not fire."
"Repeat."
"Do not fire."
The officers closed in.
Victor stopped near the tree line.
Grace stood behind him.
He raised one hand.
"Don't come closer."
Harper took the radio.
"Victor Harrington."
"You are surrounded."
He laughed.
Even through the speaker, the sound was calm.
"You still think this is about me."
Harper's expression hardened.
"Step away from the girl."
Victor looked directly toward one officer's body camera.
"Grace."
"Tell them."
Grace's face was pale.
She looked terrified.
But when she spoke...
The words shocked me.
"I came here willingly."
Harper looked at Brooks.
"What?"
Grace repeated it.
"He didn't kidnap me."
I stared at the monitor.
That made no sense.
Victor had run with her.
Rachel said Grace was in danger.
Lily said Victor controlled her.
So why was Grace defending him?
Harper spoke carefully.
"Grace, you are not in trouble."
"We only want to get you somewhere safe."
Grace shook her head.
"You don't understand."
"Then help us understand."
Grace looked at Victor.
Then at the police.
"He's not the one I was running from."
Everything inside me went still.
Harper asked the question.
"Who were you running from?"
May you like
Grace looked directly into the camera.
"Rachel Carter."
