CHAPTER 4 – The Children Who Never Came Home
The words echoed in my mind long after the call ended.
Ask Victor about the children who disappeared.
Not the mothers.
The children.
I stepped into the hallway where Rebecca was reviewing overnight reports.
"I just received a call."
She looked up immediately.
"Another threat?"
"No."
I repeated the seven words exactly as I had heard them.
Rebecca's expression changed.
"I've seen that phrase before."
"You have?"
She nodded slowly.
"It appeared in an anonymous letter sent to the Department of Justice eighteen years ago."
"What did it say?"
She opened her tablet and searched the archived database.
A scanned document appeared.
Most of the ink had faded with time, but one sentence remained perfectly legible.
The babies aren't dying. They're disappearing.
At first, everyone had dismissed the letter.
No signatures.
No evidence.
No witnesses willing to testify.
The case was filed away.
Forgotten.
Until now.
Rebecca looked at me.
"If this message is connected to Project Lullaby..."
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't have to.
Meanwhile, a federal audit team searched the abandoned executive offices of St. Gabriel Medical Group.
The hospital had been eerily quiet since Daniel's arrest.
Entire departments had stopped working.
Computers had been seized.
Executives refused interviews.
On the top floor, two investigators entered Victor Voss's private office.
It looked untouched.
Mahogany desk.
Leather chairs.
Family photographs.
Medical awards.
Everything appeared perfectly ordinary.
Almost too ordinary.
One investigator noticed a tiny scratch beneath the desk.
He knelt.
Hidden underneath was a fingerprint scanner.
"There shouldn't be one here."
He pressed it.
Nothing happened.
A second investigator found a concealed battery compartment.
The emergency power was still active.
They scanned Victor's fingerprint from a coffee cup collected earlier that morning.
The scanner flashed green.
A section of the bookshelf quietly slid open.
Behind it...
A private elevator.
The elevator descended nearly forty feet below the hospital.
No floor numbers.
No emergency buttons.
Only one destination.
When the doors opened, the investigators stopped walking.
The underground level looked nothing like a hospital.
It resembled a research facility.
Rows of empty laboratories.
Cold-storage units.
Archived patient files.
Steel doors marked only with numbers.
One room still had children's toys scattered across the floor.
A tiny stuffed rabbit lay covered in dust.
Another room contained dozens of bassinets.
All empty.
One investigator whispered,
"What is this place?"
No one answered.
Then they found the records.
Cabinets stretching from floor to ceiling.
Each drawer labeled by year.
Every year for more than three decades.
Inside each file was a newborn's footprint card.
Birth weight.
Blood type.
DNA profile.
And one additional document.
Transfer Authorization.
The destination field had been blacked out.
Rebecca arrived underground less than twenty minutes later.
She stared at the endless shelves.
"This isn't a hospital archive."
One forensic specialist approached her carrying a folder.
"You need to see this."
The file belonged to a baby boy born twenty-one years earlier.
According to the hospital's official records...
The infant had died four hours after birth.
According to the underground file...
The child had been transferred.
Alive.
Rebecca felt her pulse quicken.
"Find the parents."
The investigator swallowed.
"We already tried."
"What happened?"
"They're both dead."
Upstairs, Claire finally felt well enough to walk a few steps.
A nurse helped her into the corridor.
She smiled for the first time in weeks.
"I forgot what sunlight looks like."
I smiled back.
"We'll get through this."
Before she could answer, a little girl wandered into the hallway holding a coloring book.
She couldn't have been older than six.
She looked directly at Claire.
"Are you having a baby?"
Claire nodded gently.
"Yes."
The little girl smiled.
"My mommy said babies are gifts."
Claire's eyes softened.
"They are."
The child tilted her head.
"My mommy also said not every mommy gets to keep theirs."
The smile disappeared from Claire's face.
"What did you say?"
But another woman hurried over, taking the child's hand.
"I'm so sorry."
She looked frightened.
"She talks too much."
Before Claire could ask another question, they were gone.
Rebecca tracked them down minutes later.
The woman introduced herself as Emily Carson.
Her hands shook constantly.
"I don't want trouble."
"We only want the truth."
Emily stared at the floor.
"My first baby was born here."
Rebecca remained silent.
"He was healthy."
"What happened?"
"They told me he stopped breathing."
Emily closed her eyes.
"I never saw his body."
"You didn't?"
"They said it would be too traumatic."
Rebecca exchanged a glance with me.
"When was this?"
"Seven years ago."
"Were you given any records?"
Emily slowly reached into her purse.
She carried one photograph everywhere.
A picture of her newborn son taken seconds after delivery.
On the back someone had written in blue ink.
Baby transferred.
The word transferred had later been crossed out with black marker.
Someone had written deceased over it.
Back in federal custody, Daniel requested another meeting.
Not with his attorney.
With me.
Rebecca advised against it.
"He'll manipulate you."
"I know."
"Then why go?"
"Because frightened men make mistakes."
The interrogation room smelled of coffee and disinfectant.
Daniel looked exhausted.
Dark circles surrounded his eyes.
He had finally realized no one was coming to rescue him.
"You wanted to see me."
He nodded.
"My father..."
His voice was unusually quiet.
"...he never trusted me."
"I noticed."
"There are things I wasn't allowed to know."
I folded my arms.
"Start talking."
He leaned forward.
"When I was a child, there was a floor in the hospital no one could enter."
"The underground level."
His eyes widened.
"You found it."
"Yes."
Daniel looked genuinely shocked.
"I thought he destroyed it years ago."
"What happened there?"
Daniel swallowed.
"I don't know."
"Then why are you afraid?"
He stared at the table for several long seconds.
Finally he whispered,
"Because every time a child asked about that floor..."
He looked into my eyes.
"...the child disappeared."
Before I could ask another question, alarms suddenly echoed through the detention center.
A guard burst into the room.
"Everyone move!"
"What happened?"
"The prison transport convoy was attacked."
Rebecca rushed toward the control room.
"Who escaped?"
The guard looked pale.
Only one name left his lips.
"Victor Voss."
The room fell silent.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Then my phone vibrated.
A new message had arrived.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
Victor stood in front of an old stone building somewhere in the mountains.
May you like
Beneath the image was a single sentence:
"Come alone if you ever want to learn what happened to the babies."
