CHAPTER 20 THE BOY WHO KNEW GRACE
The entrance cameras showed Miriam and the boy entering the center at 4:17 p.m.
They remained in the lobby for eight minutes.
Then Miriam disappeared from every camera.
The boy did not.
He walked alone through the east wing and entered the children’s reading room.
Elena found him asleep beneath a table, holding a worn canvas backpack.
Rosa sat nearby.
“He says his name is Daniel.”
The boy opened his eyes when Elena approached.
He studied her face.
Then he looked at Grace.
“You found her,” he said.
Elena knelt.
“Found who?”
“Grace.”
Her daughter moved closer, curious rather than afraid.
Daniel reached into his backpack and removed a small wooden horse.
The initials S.M. were carved into its base.
Elena recognized the workmanship.
Her father had made wooden toys when she was a child.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Grandpa Samuel gave it to my mother.”
The room became silent.
Samuel had been dead for years before Daniel was born.
“What is your mother’s name?”
“Miriam.”
“Where is she now?”
Daniel pointed toward the floor.
“Under the house.”
Adrian immediately called security.
The underground level was searched again.
No one was found.
Rebecca sat across from the boy.
“Daniel, when did Samuel give your mother the horse?”
“The night she saved the baby.”
“What baby?”
Daniel looked toward Grace.
“The wrong one.”
Elena felt cold.
“What does that mean?”
“My mother said they took the wrong baby, so Grandpa Samuel hid the right one.”
Adrian moved closer.
“Who are ‘they’?”
Daniel’s eyes filled with fear.
“The men with silver birds.”
Rebecca glanced at the Mercer crest on Adrian’s cuff link.
It depicted a silver hawk.
Daniel saw it too.
He climbed backward until his shoulders touched the wall.
“No!”
Adrian immediately removed the cuff link.
“I am not going to hurt you.”
Daniel shook his head.
“They said Mercer men always lie.”
Elena turned toward Adrian.
Before she could question him, Daniel reached into the backpack again.
He gave Elena a sealed envelope.
Her name was written across the front.
Inside was a hospital identification band.
Female Infant.
No first name.
The date was twenty-eight years earlier.
The mother’s name read:
Rebecca Hale.
Rebecca stared at it.
“That is the year I was twelve.”
Elena examined the bracelet.
The date matched the month Rebecca’s mother had supposedly suffered a nervous breakdown and disappeared for six weeks.
Daniel whispered:
“My mother said the girl grew up beside the family without knowing who she was.”
“Which girl?” Elena asked.
Daniel looked directly at Rebecca.
Then the building’s fire alarms began screaming.
Smoke appeared beneath the east-wing doors.
A guard ran into the room.
“Everyone out! The apartments are on fire!”
Daniel grabbed Elena’s wrist.
“Do not go outside.”
“Why?”
May you like
He stared toward the windows.
“Because that is where the man is waiting for Grace.”
