Chapter 9
Chapter 9
I don't remember crossing the room.
One second I was standing in the doorway.
The next I was on my knees beside Eli's empty bed, ripping through blankets, opening the closet, looking under the bed as though a four-year-old child could somehow be hiding beneath it.
“Eli!”
My voice broke.
Damon was already at the window.
He examined the latch.
Then the floor.
Then the outside.
His face had become frighteningly calm.
Not cold.
Focused.
“Evelyn.”
I turned.
“Don't.”
“I need you to listen to me.”
“No.”
He crossed the room.
“Evelyn, look at me.”
I did.
“Someone took our son.”
The word our should have comforted me.
It didn't.
“Find him.”
“I will.”
“Find him now.”
“I will.”
His voice was absolute.
He took out his phone.
Then stopped.
He looked at me.
“You said no lawyers.”
“I said no lawyers around you.”
“Arthur has resources.”
“Then use them.”
Damon immediately called.
“Arthur. Activate everything.”
A pause.
“No police yet.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because if the person who took Eli is connected to the trust, we don't know whether they're watching police channels.”
“Damon.”
“I am not suggesting we hide a kidnapping.”
His eyes locked onto mine.
“I am saying we do not know who we can trust.”
That was the worst part.
He was right.
The cottage had been secure.
The church had been secure.
Damon's people had been watching the road.
Yet someone had entered without breaking the door.
Someone had opened Eli's window.
Someone had known exactly where he slept.
I looked at the envelope.
“You should have trusted me.”
The message.
The same phrase Damon had heard on the phone.
I picked it up.
There was no signature.
No fingerprint I could see.
Just four words.
Damon read it.
“This is personal.”
“How do you know?”
“Because someone wants me to think it is.”
He turned toward me.
“And because whoever wrote this knows about our marriage.”
I felt sick.
“How?”
Damon didn't answer.
Instead, he went downstairs.
I followed.
At the kitchen table, he opened the documents from the trust.
He spread them out.
Names.
Dates.
Signatures.
Family trees.
Legal language.
My eyes blurred.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something connecting Marian to the first hidden child.”
“You think this is about that?”
“I think everything is connected.”
He pulled one page toward him.
“Here.”
I leaned over.
A list of beneficiaries.
Thomas Vale.
Marian Vale.
Elias Vale.
Anna Vale.
Then a fourth name.
The ink was faded.
I squinted.
“Who is that?”
Damon stared at it.
His face drained of color.
“That's impossible.”
“Who?”
He traced the name.
“Daniel Vale.”
“Who is Daniel?”
“I don't know.”
“You just said his name.”
“I know the name. I don't know the person.”
“What does that mean?”
Damon sat back.
“Daniel Vale was listed as deceased before my grandfather was born.”
My skin prickled.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“No.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Arthur.”
I stopped him.
“Wait.”
“What?”
I looked at the trust document.
The name Daniel Vale had been added in different ink.
Much later.
Someone had inserted it.
“It's forged.”
Damon leaned closer.
“Maybe.”
“No.”
I pointed.
“Look at the paper.”
He did.
“This section was added later.”
“How do you know?”
“My father taught me paper conservation when I was a child.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“My father collected old documents.”
He took the page carefully.
“The fibers are different.”
The room went silent.
Damon looked toward the window.
“Someone has been altering the trust.”
“Recently?”
“Very.”
“How recently?”
He didn't answer.
That scared me more than anything.
“Damon.”
He looked at me.
“The current trust may not be what my father left behind.”
“So someone changed it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make it look like Eli inherited something.”
I stared at him.
“Maybe they want him to inherit.”
“Or they want everyone to believe he did.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Because if enough people believe your son controls the Vale assets, they will come after him.”
The realization hit me.
“This kidnapping could be a diversion.”
Damon nodded.
“Someone wants us looking at the trust while they move something else.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
I hated the answer.
Then I remembered something.
The letter.
The unfinished sentence.
If he discovers the boy, he will use him to control the trust.
Not Eli.
A boy.
Another boy.
“Damon.”
He looked at me.
“My mother's letter said 'the boy.'”
“Yes.”
“She wasn't talking about Eli.”
His expression changed.
“No.”
“She wrote that decades ago.”
“Yes.”
“Then who was the first hidden child?”
Damon stood.
“We find Marian.”
“How?”
“I have an idea.”
“Please tell me it doesn't involve breaking into anything.”
His expression almost softened.
“It involves an abandoned railway station.”
I stared.
“Of course it does.”
Thirty minutes later, we were in Damon's car.
I had never imagined sitting beside him again.
Not like this.
Not while our son was missing.
Snow whipped against the windshield.
Damon drove himself.
No chauffeur.
No security convoy.
Only us.
I held the envelope in my lap.
“What if he gets hurt?”
Damon's hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“He won't.”
“You can't promise that.”
“No.”
His voice became quieter.
“But I can promise whoever took him will regret giving me a reason to stop being patient.”
I looked at him.
There was the old Damon.
The man people feared.
But beneath him was something else.
A father terrified of losing his child.
We reached the old railway station just before midnight.
The building had been abandoned for twenty years.
Windows were broken.
Snow covered the tracks.
Damon killed the engine.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“You don't get to leave me behind while my son is somewhere out there.”
He looked at me.
Then nodded.
“Stay close.”
We entered through a side door.
The station smelled of dust, rust, and frozen wood.
Damon switched on a flashlight.
I followed.
On the wall were old schedules.
Chicago.
Milwaukee.
Green Bay.
Ashland.
Then I saw something.
A symbol.
The same V carved into the wooden box.
“Damon.”
He turned.
I pointed.
He walked closer.
Under the symbol was a date.
And beneath that:
M.V.
“Marian,” I whispered.
Damon touched the wall.
“There was a room behind this.”
“How do you know?”
“Old station blueprints.”
He searched the wall.
Found a loose panel.
Pulled.
A narrow passage opened.
I stared into darkness.
“You've got to be kidding.”
We went inside.
The passage ended at a small room.
There was a desk.
A chair.
And a metal filing cabinet.
Damon opened the first drawer.
Empty.
Second.
Empty.
Third.
A single file.
He pulled it out.
The label read:
ANNA VALE — MERCER.
My knees almost gave out.
Inside were documents.
Birth records.
School records.
Photographs.
And a medical file.
My mother's medical file.
I touched the pages.
“Why would Marian keep this?”
Damon turned another page.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
It was a photograph.
My mother as a teenager.
Standing beside a boy.
The boy had dark hair.
Same eyes as mine.
Same eyes as Eli.
I stared.
“Who is he?”
On the back of the photograph was one word.
MICHAEL.
Then another note.
Michael was not Anna's brother.
He was her son.
I couldn't breathe.
“What?”
Damon read the note.
His face went rigid.
“My mother had a child?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Your mother had a child before you.”
The room spun.
“That means…”
“Yes.”
I stared at the photograph.
A teenage Anna.
A boy beside her.
A secret child.
My half-brother.
Hidden for decades.
But where was he now?
I turned the page.
A handwritten line appeared at the bottom.
Transferred to Marian's care, 1981.
Then another.
Location withheld.
Then, underneath, in different handwriting:
Alive.
My hands began shaking.
“Damon.”
“I see it.”
“There was another child.”
“Yes.”
“And someone knew where he was.”
“Yes.”
A noise sounded outside.
Crunch.
Snow.
Footsteps.
Damon immediately turned off the flashlight.
Darkness swallowed us.
He grabbed my hand.
We stayed still.
Another step.
Then another.
Someone entered the station.
A man's voice echoed through the hall.
“Evelyn?”
My blood turned cold.
Damon's grip tightened.
The voice continued.
“I know you're here.”
It was the same distorted voice from the phone.
Then he said something that made my entire body freeze.
“Your son is alive.”
I almost cried out.
Damon covered my mouth gently.
The man continued.
“But if you want him back…”
A pause.
“You have to bring me Michael Vale.”
The footsteps moved closer.
Damon's eyes met mine.
Neither of us spoke.
Because we had just discovered something worse than a secret heir.
May you like
Someone had been searching for him.
And whoever had taken Eli knew exactly where to find him.
