Chapter 7: The Original
The internet café on Mercer Street smelled of old coffee and warm electronics.
She sat at the furthest terminal from the door, her back to the wall, and typed the email address from memory.
The password was a combination of her mother's maiden name and the street number of the first flat she had ever rented.
She had chosen it because it meant nothing to anyone who had ever known her as Claire Maddox, household coordinator, employee of the Callahan estate.
The inbox loaded.
One sent message.
Sent fourteen months ago, the night she found the box.
She opened it.
The attachments were still there.
Twelve photographs.
The letter, page by page.
The envelope front and back.
The photograph of the woman holding the baby.
She downloaded everything to a USB drive Hatch had handed her outside.
Then she opened the letter photographs and read them again, slowly, on the screen.
Ruth Callahan had written in a careful, slightly formal hand.
The kind of handwriting that suggested a private school education and a lifetime of writing things down because she didn't trust herself to remember them.
*Nora, if you are reading this, then something has gone wrong.
I want you to know that I did not give you away because I wanted to.
I want you to know that I fought for as long as I could, and that when I stopped fighting it was because I was told that fighting would put you in danger.
I believed them.
I should not have believed them.*
*Your father's name is in the document I have left with Mr.
Alderman.
He has instructions to give it to you when you turn eighteen, or sooner if circumstances require.
I hope circumstances do not require it.
I hope you are safe and well and that this letter finds you in a life that is better than the one I was afraid to give you.*
*The house with the red door is real.
It is on Linden Street.
It belonged to your grandmother.
I have tried to make sure it stays in the family.
I am not certain I have succeeded.*
*I love you.
I am sorry.
Please be brave.*
*— Your mother*
Claire sat back.
Hatch appeared at her shoulder.
He had been on the phone in the doorway.
He leaned down and read the final paragraph.
Then he straightened.
"Alderman," he said.
"That's the estate attorney."
"He has a document.
With Nora's father's name."
"He told me this morning he had something he was instructed to hold.
He didn't tell me what it contained." Hatch's voice was careful.
"He may not have known."
"Or he was protecting himself."
"Possibly both." He took the USB drive from the terminal.
"This is enough to open a formal inquiry.
The letter alone establishes that Ruth Callahan believed Nora was placed under duress.
Combined with Alderman's testimony —"
His phone rang.
He answered it immediately.
Listened for eleven seconds.
"Where?" he said.
He listened again.
"Don't let anyone in or out until I get there.
I mean anyone." He ended the call and looked at Claire.
"Nora," she said.
"She's at a residential facility on the north side.
A private one.
Registered as a voluntary short-term placement." He was already moving toward the door.
"The person who sent you the message this morning — M — is a staff member there.
She recognised Nora's name from a missing persons alert that was filed this morning."
Claire stood up so fast the chair scraped back.
"Someone filed a missing persons report?"
"Alderman," Hatch said.
"He filed it forty minutes ago.
He said he received a phone call last night that frightened him enough to act." He held the door open.
"He wouldn't tell me who called him."
She walked past him into the street.
She already knew.
The photo slipped under the cell door.
The pencilled words.
*They found the room.*
May you like
Someone inside the Callahan estate had been trying to help her from the beginning.
And they had just made their most dangerous move yet.
