The photograph remained on the monitor.
I could not look away.
The woman in it was unmistakably me, though younger by nearly two decades. My hair was shorter. My face was thinner. I wore the blue dress my mother had given me for my sixteenth birthday.
But I had never remembered being photographed there.
Behind me stood a brick building with narrow windows and a black iron fence.
Daniel stepped closer to the screen.
“Do you recognize the place?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Ethan stood several feet behind us.
He looked as though someone had drained the strength from his body.
The lead agent turned toward him.
“You said you didn't know everything in this archive.”
“I don't.”
“Then tell us what you do know.”
Ethan swallowed.
“My father believed someone was trying to destroy the family.”
“That doesn't explain this.”
“No.”
His voice was barely audible.
“It doesn't.”
I turned toward him.
“You knew my father.”
Ethan looked at me.
“Yes.”
The answer struck harder than I expected.
“When?”
“Before I met you.”
“How long before?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“Several years.”
I stared at him.
“How many?”
“Five.”
My mouth went dry.
Five years before our first meeting.
Five years before I ever knew he existed.
Daniel moved to another terminal.
“There are records here from 2004.”
He entered a date.
Folders appeared.
One was labeled with my father's name.
Another carried Ethan's.
A third had only a number.
“Twenty-seven,” Daniel said.
The agent beside him frowned.
“What is twenty-seven?”
“I don't know yet.”
I looked at Ethan.
“You said my father failed to stop you from becoming him.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“He wasn't talking about me.”
The room went silent.
I felt cold.
“Then who was he talking about?”
“My father.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
Ethan looked at her.
“My father wasn't the man everyone thought he was.”
“You've said that before.”
“I never told you the rest.”
Margaret stared at him.
“What rest?”
Ethan pointed toward the photograph.
“That picture was taken at St. Agnes.”
I looked back at the screen.
“What's St. Agnes?”
“A children's home.”
The words seemed to echo.
I shook my head.
“I was never in a children's home.”
Ethan didn't respond.
Daniel searched the database.
“St. Agnes closed in 2007.”
“Why?”
“Officially? Funding problems.”
Daniel clicked another record.
“Unofficially, several investigations were opened.”
I moved closer.
“What kind of investigations?”
He turned the monitor toward me.
Missing children.
Unreported transfers.
Financial irregularities.
False adoption records.
My hands went cold.
“No.”
Ethan whispered my name.
I turned on him.
“What happened there?”
He looked at the photograph.
“You were there for three months.”
“I would remember.”
“You were six.”
I stared at him.
“I was never away from my parents for three months.”
“My mother told everyone you were visiting relatives.”
I felt something inside me shift.
A memory surfaced.
A hallway.
White walls.
A red plastic cup.
Someone singing in another room.
I pressed my fingers against my temple.
“I remember a woman.”
“What woman?”
“I don't know.”
Daniel approached.
“Take your time.”
I closed my eyes.
“She wore a green sweater.”
Ethan looked at Daniel.
Daniel's expression changed.
“What?”
“That description appears in the files.”
I opened my eyes.
“Who was she?”
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
Then he opened another document.
“Her name was Rebecca Vale.”
Margaret suddenly sat down.
“I know that name.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Margaret looked frightened.
“Why?”
“She worked for my husband.”
Ethan stared at his mother.
“You knew her?”
“Not well.”
“You told me she disappeared.”
Margaret's hands began shaking.
“She did.”
Daniel looked at Ethan.
“When?”
“2006.”
Daniel searched.
“That's the same year St. Agnes closed.”
Nobody spoke.
I looked at the photograph again.
This time, I noticed something I hadn't seen before.
A man stood behind the fence.
His face was partially hidden.
I leaned closer.
“Wait.”
Daniel enlarged the image.
The man's face sharpened.
My heart stopped.
It was my father.
He was standing behind me.
Watching.
Not smiling.
Not waving.
Watching.
I stepped backward.
“He was there.”
Ethan nodded.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he was trying to get you out.”
“Then why did he leave me there?”
“He didn't.”
I looked at him.
“He thought he had.”
“What does that mean?”
Ethan walked toward the monitor.
“My father intercepted the transfer.”
“What transfer?”
“The one that was supposed to send you somewhere else.”
My skin prickled.
“Where?”
Ethan hesitated.
“Another facility.”
Daniel looked at him sharply.
“Which one?”
Ethan said the name.
“Blackridge.”
Daniel's face hardened.
He knew it.
“What is Blackridge?”
“A private behavioral institution,” Daniel said.
I stared at him.
“For children?”
“Officially.”
“And unofficially?”
He didn't answer.
The agent did.
“People were sent there when families wanted problems to disappear.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
I thought of Ethan's recording.
I thought of him planning to have me declared unstable.
I thought of my father's letter.
If you are reading this, I failed to stop your husband from becoming me.
The pieces were moving.
But they weren't fitting together.
“Why would my father be involved?”
Ethan looked at me.
“Because he helped build the system.”
My heart sank.
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
He pointed toward the archive.
“My father and your father worked together.”
“For what?”
“To control people.”
I stared at the screen.
“And then my father tried to stop him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ethan's voice broke.
“Because he realized what they'd become.”
The lead agent approached the terminal.
“There are thousands of files here.”
Daniel nodded.
“And most are twenty years old.”
The agent opened another directory.
“This one was accessed recently.”
Everyone turned.
“By whom?”
The screen displayed a timestamp.
Yesterday.
At 11:42 p.m.
Ethan's face went white.
“That was me.”
I looked at him.
“You accessed this archive last night?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He didn't answer.
I stepped closer.
“What were you looking for?”
Ethan stared at the screen.
“My father's final file.”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“Where is it?”
Ethan looked at me.
“It's under your name.”
My stomach dropped.
He clicked the file.
A scanned document appeared.
At the top was a date.
October 14, 2006.
Then a handwritten note.
Subject is not the daughter of the man listed on her birth certificate.
I stopped breathing.
Margaret whispered,
“Claire…”
I looked at Ethan.
He was crying.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just one tear running down his cheek.
“I didn't know until last year.”
My voice barely worked.
“What?”
“I found the file.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
He looked at the screen.
“Of what you would discover about yourself.”
The monitor flickered.
A second document appeared.
This one carried my father's signature.
And beneath it was a sentence that changed everything.
She must never learn who her biological father is.
I stared at the words.
Then the system shut down.
All the screens went black.
From somewhere deeper in the hidden level came the sound of a door locking.
Daniel turned.
“Someone else is here.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Locked Door Opened onto a Room Filled With My Father’s Files, and One Name Made Ethan Finally Tell Me the Truth
The Bruise My Husband Expected Me to Hide Became the First Clue That His Perfect Life Was Built on Lies
Part 5 of 10
