Chapter 6 - THE CHILDREN OF NEW DAWN
We brought Evelyn inside and locked every door.
Cole cleaned the cut above her eyebrow.
Boone watched the parking lot.
Jack placed the medical ledger on the counter.
Inside were dozens of names.
Mothers.
Babies.
Adoptive families.
Payment amounts.
Some pages went back to 1987.
Others continued until 2003.
New Dawn had operated for sixteen years.
“This is more than six babies,” I said.
Evelyn looked at me.
“There were forty-one.”
Jack stopped turning the pages.
“Forty-one stolen children?”
“That we documented.”
“Who is we?”
“Samuel Pike and me.”
Evelyn’s voice trembled.
“Samuel discovered the truth after Daniel disappeared.”
“He believed Raymond killed his son.”
“Did he?”
“I never saw the body.”
“What did you see?”
“Daniel came to the hospital the night Laura delivered.”
I gripped the counter.
“He was there?”
“He tried to reach your room.”
“Margaret told me he had abandoned me.”
“Margaret was terrified.”
“Raymond’s deputies stopped Daniel in the basement.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“I heard him screaming.”
Jack moved closer.
“What happened?”
“Samuel went downstairs.”
“He never came back.”
“By morning, the basement had been cleaned.”
“Raymond said Samuel fled after stealing hospital drugs.”
“And Daniel?”
“He disappeared with him.”
I looked down at the ledger.
My son’s father and grandfather had vanished on the same night.
“What about the body beneath the cemetery?”
“I believe it is Samuel.”
“Where is Daniel?”
Evelyn’s silence frightened me.
She turned toward Jack.
“There was another baby born that night.”
Jack frowned.
“What does that have to do with Daniel?”
“The mother was Rebecca Sloan.”
The name appeared in my father’s recording.
The woman who tried to report New Dawn.
Evelyn opened the ledger to a marked page.
Rebecca had delivered a boy three hours before me.
The baby was listed as deceased.
There was no record of an adoption payment.
“Where did he go?” I asked.
“I do not know.”
“Then why is the page marked?”
“Because Rebecca escaped from the maternity floor.”
“She reached the basement while Raymond was holding Daniel.”
“What did she see?”
“Enough to get herself killed.”
Jack looked at the page again.
“Who took her baby?”
“Margaret.”
I stared at Evelyn.
“My mother took two babies?”
“She carried both of them out during the fire alarm.”
The memory returned.
Smoke in the corridor.
My mother’s bloody sleeve.
A nurse shouting that the nursery had lost power.
“What fire alarm?”
“Margaret pulled it.”
Evelyn took a slow breath.
“She carried Jack to the diner.”
“What happened to Rebecca’s baby?”
Evelyn opened her bag.
She removed an old photograph.
It showed Raymond Calder standing beside a woman holding a small boy.
The woman was Raymond’s wife.
The child was approximately two years old.
I recognized him.
Sheriff Owen Calder.
My chest tightened.
“Owen was adopted?”
Evelyn nodded.
“He was Rebecca Sloan’s son.”
Jack looked toward the road.
“The current sheriff is one of the stolen children.”
“And Raymond raised him,” Boone said.
“As his nephew.”
Evelyn nodded again.
“Raymond’s wife could not have children.”
“They presented Owen as the son of Raymond’s dead brother.”
“Does Owen know?”
“I do not think so.”
Headlights appeared outside.
Three vehicles entered the parking lot.
Boone switched off the diner lights.
Raymond Calder stepped from the first car.
Sheriff Owen emerged from the second.
Two deputies exited the third.
Raymond approached the front door.
He did not knock.
He looked through the glass directly at us.
Then he raised his phone.
My phone began ringing.
I answered.
Raymond’s voice came through calmly.
“Your mother has ten minutes left to live.”
I gripped the phone.
“What did you do?”
“I did nothing yet.”
“You are standing outside.”
“I do not need to be at the hospice.”
He looked toward the medical ledger.
“Bring me the book.”
“And you will leave her alone?”
“No.”
May you like
His smile appeared through the dark glass.
“But I will let you hear her voice before she dies.”
