The Woman in the Service Elevator
Chapter 13 - The Woman in the Service Elevator
Caroline had been free for less than five minutes when she insisted on leading the search.
Her legs shook from sedation, and a bruise darkened one temple, but the force in her voice silenced every objection. “Gideon will take Lucas to the original site. He thinks endings become true if you repeat them.”
Ortiz ordered roadblocks around Blackwater Bridge and the old quarry. Gideon’s limousine had left the hotel using a diplomatic security lane borrowed from a senator who suddenly discovered he had never met Gideon in his life.
In the service elevator, Rebecca and Caroline stood inches apart, twenty-five years pressing between them.
“You raised my son,” Rebecca said.
Caroline closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“You let me believe he was dead.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because every person we contacted disappeared, lost a job, or received a threat. Gideon had your father’s company, the police chief, and St. Agnes. I was afraid if I brought Lucas to you, I would deliver him back to the people who stole him.”
“You could have trusted me.”
“I was nineteen when they taught me trust was a weapon.”
The elevator descended. Rebecca wanted to forgive her sister because Caroline had saved Lucas. She wanted to hate her because nine years had been taken from them. Both feelings were true, and neither canceled the other.
“Does he know?” Rebecca asked.
“Not fully. We told him I found him when he was a baby. We planned to explain after we had evidence.”
“You always planned later.”
Caroline flinched.
Rebecca regretted the cruelty but not the truth.
In the lobby, Eleanor reached Caroline first. She held her as if holding Nathan too. Margaret approached more slowly, then stopped, unable to cross the final few feet.
Caroline crossed them for her.
“Mom.”
Margaret made a sound Rebecca had heard only once before, when the hospital told her Lucas had died. Mother and daughter collapsed into each other.
William stood apart, soaked from the sprinklers, shame visible in every line of his body.
Caroline looked at him. “You took Gideon’s money.”
“I thought it kept Rebecca safe.”
“You thought obedience was protection.”
“I was wrong.”
“Twenty-five years is a long way to be wrong.”
Police cars carried them toward Blackwater. In Ortiz’s vehicle, Caroline explained the brooch. After escaping with Nathan, she replaced the blue stone with a glass capsule containing a memory card. The card held copied clinic records, videos of Gideon visiting St. Orison, and proof that Doctor Finch transferred infants through Northlight.
“Why not send it to the police?” Ortiz asked.
“We did. Elias intercepted two packages. A detective returned the third to Gideon.”
Ortiz’s jaw tightened. “Name?”
“Former chief Raymond Cole.”
Ortiz had begun her career under Cole. He had taught her that evidence mattered more than emotion. She looked as if someone had reached backward and poisoned her first day on the job.
Caroline touched her arm. “You’re not responsible for the people who taught you badly.”
“That is generous,” Ortiz said. “I’m not feeling generous.”
A helicopter reported Gideon’s limousine abandoned near the quarry. Footprints led toward a maintenance cabin beside the river.
Rebecca stared at the dark water below the bridge.
Twenty-five years earlier, the families had come here searching for bodies.
Tonight, they came searching for a living child.
Caroline took Rebecca’s hand before they left the vehicle.
“Lucas is brave,” she said. “But when he is terrified, he counts backward from one hundred and jokes about food.”
Rebecca nodded.
May you like
From the trees ahead came a boy’s voice shouting, “Ninety-three! Also, your kidnapping snacks are terrible!”
Rebecca ran toward him.
