Chapter 5 - The Grave Without a Name
My father went completely still.
Rebecca saw it.
“So you do remember.”
Jonathan looked at the screen.
“I remember everything.”
My chest tightened.
That was not what he had told me.
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I said I didn’t know who your biological mother was.”
“You also said you destroyed evidence.”
His eyes met mine.
“I destroyed the facility.”
Arthur Cross flinched.
Rebecca laughed.
“No.”
She leaned toward the camera.
“You burned it.”
My stomach dropped.
Images appeared across the ballroom screens.
A brick building engulfed in flames.
Firefighters.
Police vehicles.
A newspaper headline from twenty-three years earlier.
ABANDONED CLINIC FIRE CLAIMS SIX LIVES.
My father looked at the photographs.
“I was trying to stop them.”
“By burning the building?”
“The children were already out.”
Rebecca’s face hardened.
“Not all of them.”
Jonathan looked shaken.
“I was told they were.”
“Told by whom?”
He hesitated.
That pause answered something.
Rebecca smiled.
“Elizabeth.”
My mother.
My father slowly lowered his head.
“Yes.”
I could barely breathe.
“What was Mom involved in?”
Jonathan looked toward me.
“She was a prosecutor.”
“I know.”
“She discovered Orpheus while investigating an illegal adoption case.”
“So she exposed it?”
“No.”
The word hurt more than I expected.
My father continued.
“She tried.”
“Then why is her name on the payment records?”
“Because they threatened you.”
I stared at him.
“You?”
“You were seven.”
He swallowed.
“Elizabeth found you in that facility.”
Rebecca’s face changed slightly.
“She was there that night?”
Jonathan nodded.
“She was.”
I stepped closer.
“What happened?”
My father looked at me as though deciding whether he could survive telling me the truth.
“Elizabeth entered the facility with two investigators.”
“One of them was killed.”
“The other disappeared.”
“She found sixteen children.”
“Orpheus had already begun relocating them.”
“She called me.”
“I brought a team.”
“We removed everyone we could find.”
“And then?”
My father’s voice became rough.
“Elizabeth found your file.”
He looked at me.
“There was an order attached to it.”
“What kind of order?”
“Termination.”
The ballroom disappeared again.
I felt seven years old without understanding why.
“Termination means what I think it means?”
Jonathan nodded.
My hands went cold.
“Why?”
“I never learned.”
Rebecca interrupted.
“I did.”
Every eye returned to the screen.
She opened a medical report.
Subject Seventeen.
Blood type.
DNA markers.
Maternal link confirmed.
Restricted classification.
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca looked directly at me.
“It means you were never supposed to be adopted.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother was alive.”
My father shook his head.
“No.”
Rebecca continued.
“She wasn’t homeless.”
“She wasn’t an addict.”
“She wasn’t undocumented.”
“She wasn’t dead.”
My pulse raced.
“Who was she?”
Rebecca hesitated.
For the first time, she looked frightened.
Arthur Cross whispered,
“Don’t.”
Rebecca ignored him.
She clicked another file.
The screen showed a photograph of a woman entering a black sedan.
Young.
Elegant.
Dark hair.
Hazel eyes.
My eyes.
Beneath the photo was a name.
CATHERINE ROWAN.
Several older guests reacted immediately.
Someone gasped.
A retired senator sat down hard in his chair.
Damian looked around.
“Who is Catherine Rowan?”
My father whispered,
“The daughter of President William Rowan.”
I stared at him.
President Rowan had served one term before dying suddenly in office.
His daughter Catherine had disappeared from public life months before his death.
History books said she suffered a breakdown and moved overseas.
Rebecca looked at me.
“That was the official story.”
My voice barely worked.
“What really happened?”
Rebecca opened another photograph.
Catherine Rowan strapped to a hospital bed.
Pregnant.
May you like
Terrified.
And standing beside her was a younger Arthur Cross.
