Chapter 4 - SARAH'S REAL MOTHER
Rebecca looked directly into the camera.
“I was seventeen when they took my baby.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
Thomas stood beside her.
Rebecca continued.
“I was placed at Veil House because I witnessed Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Voss murder a confidential informant.”
Thomas stiffened.
Sarah noticed.
“You know that name?”
Thomas nodded.
“Former Sheriff Voss.”
“He died ten years ago.”
Onscreen, Rebecca explained that Voss had not acted alone.
Several officers.
A judge.
A doctor.
A county attorney.
Together they created a system for disappearing inconvenient witnesses.
Pregnant women were especially vulnerable.
Their identities could be changed.
Their children could be moved.
Their relatives could be told they had run away.
Veil House became the center of the operation.
Rebecca escaped before they could kill her.
But she could not recover her daughter.
“So you left me?”
Sarah whispered.
Rebecca seemed to answer from twenty-three years earlier.
“I stayed away because they promised Sarah would live if I disappeared.”
Sarah began crying.
Thomas reached for her hand.
She pulled away instinctively.
“I need to hear this.”
Rebecca continued.
“The operation didn’t end with Voss.”
“It grew.”
“The people who inherited it called themselves the Circle.”
Thomas muttered a curse.
“What?”
“The Circle.”
“I’ve seen that word in Natalie’s notes.”
Rebecca named one person.
Judge Harold Keene.
Still alive.
Still serving.
Then another.
Dr. Miriam Cross.
Director of maternal medicine at St. Matthew’s.
The doctor who had supervised Sarah’s pregnancy.
Sarah felt sick.
“She delivered Lucy.”
Marian nodded grimly.
“That’s why Lucy was marked.”
Rebecca’s recording continued.
“If Sarah ever has a child, they will come for the baby.”
Sarah whispered.
“Why?”
The answer followed.
“Because Sarah is the only living heir to evidence I hid before I disappeared.”
Thomas leaned toward the screen.
Rebecca said she had stolen a ledger from Malcolm Voss.
The ledger contained original names of mothers, children, buyers, officials, and payments.
She divided the ledger into two forms.
One physical.
One encrypted.
The encrypted copy required a family-linked key.
Thomas frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Marian looked at Lucy.
“Genetic encryption.”
Sarah stared at her.
“That’s not possible.”
“Not DNA opening a computer like a movie.”
Marian shook her head.
“Rebecca used family medical identifiers and birth-record data as part of the key.”
“Lucy’s legitimate hospital screening created the first verified record tying Sarah’s bloodline to Rebecca.”
Thomas understood first.
“The Circle thought Rebecca’s files were useless without Sarah.”
Marian nodded.
“Now Lucy’s birth made the chain provable.”
Sarah looked down at her daughter.
Lucy wasn’t dangerous because she carried a secret inside her.
She was dangerous because her existence confirmed one.
Thomas closed the video.
“We need to reach state police.”
Marian shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the Circle has people there too.”
Thomas stared at her.
“Who can we trust?”
Marian looked toward the window.
“Federal investigators.”
“Where?”
“There’s an agent who has been waiting for this evidence.”
“What’s his name?”
Marian hesitated.
“Daniel Reese.”
Thomas went pale.
Sarah noticed immediately.
“What?”
Thomas whispered.
May you like
“Daniel Reese died yesterday.”
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