CHAPTER 22 — THE MISSING WITNESS
The foundation went into lockdown.
Guards searched the estate.
Mara had not passed through any monitored exit.
Her shoes remained beneath the bed.
Her coat hung in the closet.
The children said their mother had left after receiving a message from Evelyn.
“I never sent her anything,” Evelyn said.
Daniel handed over the phone.
The message had come from a cloned number.
COME TO THE GARDEN ALONE. I FOUND THE REGISTRY.
Security footage showed Mara entering the white-rose garden.
No footage showed her leaving.
Gabriel remained under guard in the marble hall.
“You knew she would accuse you,” Evelyn said.
“I knew she was afraid of me.”
“Why?”
“Because her husband helped raise me.”
Evelyn stopped.
Gabriel explained that Charles Ellison had served as legal counsel to the family that adopted him.
“He knew who I was. He also knew Katherine had found me.”
“Did Charles kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Mara believes you were involved.”
“Mara believes what her husband told her.”
Leah searched the garden with Rosa.
Near the northern wall, they discovered disturbed soil beneath a rosebush.
No body lay beneath it.
Instead, they found a metal handle.
It opened a narrow staircase descending below the garden.
Evelyn stared into the darkness.
“The underground rooms were destroyed.”
“That is what the contractor reported,” Caroline said.
Michael Crane had supervised part of the demolition.
They descended with investigators.
The staircase ended at a concrete corridor running beneath the greenhouse.
One wall had recently been painted.
Another concealed a service door leading beyond the estate boundary.
Mara could have been taken through it without appearing on the cameras.
Inside a small chamber, they found nine chairs facing a projector screen.
On the wall were photographs of foundation residents.
Arrival times.
Children’s names.
Medical appointments.
Legal strategies.
Someone had monitored them from inside the property.
Rosa examined the photographs.
“These began before the foundation opened.”
Victor looked at Evelyn.
“They knew what you were building.”
On a desk stood a laptop.
Its hard drive had been removed.
Beside it was Mara’s missing file.
Evelyn opened the folder.
A new page had been inserted.
It contained a photograph of Gabriel standing beside Katherine at the airfield.
Gabriel appeared to be a young boy.
Katherine had one arm around him.
On the back was a handwritten message.
HE IS MY SON, BUT HE IS NOT SAFE.
Below the sentence, another person had added:
NEITHER IS EVELYN.
A sound came from the far end of the corridor.
Footsteps.
Investigators raised their weapons.
A door slammed.
They followed the noise into another room.
It was empty except for Mara’s gray coat and a live video screen.
May you like
The screen showed Leah standing alone in the garden above them.
A man was approaching her from behind.
