Chapter 6: The Voice Adrian Left Behind
Dr.
Bell’s office had been cleared by the time Naomi obtained access.
His files were gone, and every drawer stood open.
“He knew we were coming,” Gideon said.
Naomi touched the still-warm coffee on the desk.
“Someone warned him less than an hour ago.”
Mallerie spotted a torn photograph in the wastebasket.
Adrian stood beside her outside St.
Anne’s, his hand resting over her pregnant belly.
“Why would Dr.
Bell have this?”
A woman answered from the doorway.
“Because Lenora gave it to him.”
Beatrice Vale stepped inside.
She was Lenora’s older sister, a woman Gideon had not seen at a family gathering in eight years.
“What are you doing here?” Gideon asked.
“Trying to correct the mistake I made when I stayed silent.”
Beatrice handed Mallerie a brass key.
“Adrian came to me three days before his accident.
He left a box and told me to protect it if anything happened to him.”
“You had it all this time?” Mallerie asked.
“I believed Lenora when she said you had accepted money and disappeared.”
Mallerie’s face crumpled.
“I waited for Adrian until someone called and said he was gone.”
Beatrice took her hands.
“Then I failed both of you.
Let me help you now.”
They opened Adrian’s box in Naomi’s office.
Inside were letters addressed to Mallerie, returned unopened, along with a small velvet ring case.
Mallerie lifted the ring and began to cry.
“He didn’t leave me.”
“No,” Beatrice said.
“Your letters were redirected to Lenora’s office.
Adrian’s were returned to him.”
Gideon placed a hand over Mallerie’s trembling fingers.
“What else is in the box?”
A memory card lay beneath the letters.
Naomi inserted it into her laptop, and Adrian appeared on the screen.
“If Mallerie sees this, I need her to know I did not change my mind.
Mother says she can make the hospital declare our baby unfit and place him with strangers.
I’m meeting Gideon tomorrow.
He’ll help us.”
Gideon turned away from the screen.
Mallerie touched his shoulder.
“You couldn’t help with something you were never told.”
“I missed his last call.”
“You didn’t know it was his last.”
Adrian continued speaking.
“Dr.
Bell agreed to alter the hospital record.
Mother paid him through the Vale Family Trust.
The payment is marked as consulting work.”
Naomi froze the image.
“That gives us a date and an account.”
Mrs.
Harrow hurried into the office, breathing hard.
“Lenora knows about the box.”
“How?” Gideon asked.
“She called me.
She offered me enough money to leave the country.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked her to repeat herself.”
Mrs.
Harrow held up her phone.
“This time, the call recorded properly.”
Lenora’s voice played clearly.
“Destroy Adrian’s card, and I will make sure no one blames you for taking the infant.
Refuse, and you will carry the full responsibility.”
Naomi copied both recordings onto three encrypted drives.
The lights suddenly went out.
A crash came from the outer office.
Gideon rushed through the door and found the window open, papers blowing across the floor.
“The original card,” Naomi gasped.
“It’s gone.”
Mallerie’s phone lit up with a new message from an unknown number.
The photograph showed Adrian’s memory card snapped in half.
A second message followed.
WITH NO ORIGINAL, YOU HAVE NOTHING.
Then Mrs.
Harrow looked at the empty pocket of her coat.
May you like
“My phone,” she whispered.
“They took that too.”
