Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT MY WIFE TRADED ME AWAY
Nathan Rowan stared at his wife as though he were seeing her for the first time.
"You handed them the documents?"
Meredith didn't answer.
Lena Ortiz quietly shut the laptop.
June took Ismerie into the kitchen, telling her they needed to find something warm to drink.
The little girl resisted.
"Is Daddy mad?"
June glanced toward the adults.
"He's hurt, sweetheart."
"Did Mommy do something bad?"
June's heart ached.
"Sometimes grown-ups make terrible choices when they're frightened. That doesn't mean they stop loving us."
Back in the living room, Nathan stood beside the fireplace.
Ten months in captivity had taught him to recognize betrayal.
The guard who promised food before denying it.
The doctor who claimed to be helping while recording his injuries.
The voices outside his cell discussing whether he was still useful.
But he had never imagined Meredith's voice belonging among them.
"Start talking," he said.
She sat on the sofa.
Her wrists were still bandaged.
Her skin was so pale that the bruises beneath her eyes looked almost black.
"Three days before you disappeared, a woman came to our house."
"Who?"
"Miss Finch."
Nathan's face hardened.
"The woman who tried to drug Ismerie?"
Meredith nodded.
"She had photographs."
"What photographs?"
"Ismerie outside her school. Ismerie playing in June's yard. Ismerie sleeping in her bedroom."
Nathan stopped moving.
Meredith continued.
"Then she showed me a photograph of a little girl in a hospital bed."
"Who?"
"Zoey Bishop."
Nathan knew the name.
The daughter of Rebecca Bishop, whose missing settlement funds had helped uncover the scheme.
Meredith looked down.
"Miss Finch said Rebecca had tried to expose Voss. She told me Rebecca was dead and Zoey had nowhere safe to go."
Nathan felt his stomach tighten.
"She threatened Ismerie."
"Yes."
Meredith began crying.
"They told me that if I didn't bring you to the quarry, they would take our daughter."
Nathan remembered the night clearly.
Meredith had called, sobbing, claiming someone had threatened their family.
She had begged him to meet her.
He had trusted her.
He had driven to the quarry because she told him she had found evidence that would protect Ismerie.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"They said they'd know."
"You could have warned me in the truck."
"I tried."
Nathan shook his head.
"No. You told me everything was going to be okay."
Meredith's voice broke.
"Because I was trying to believe it."
She reached into her coat pocket.
From an envelope, she removed a photograph.
It showed Ismerie asleep in her pink bedroom.
A man's hand rested beside her pillow.
On the hand was a silver ring.
Cole's ring.
Nathan stared.
"That photograph was taken while I was sitting in the truck with you?"
Meredith nodded.
"They told me Cole was already inside our house. If I warned you, he would hurt her before we got home."
Nathan pressed a hand against the fireplace mantel.
"And the envelope?"
"Your access credentials. The copies of the court orders you were preparing for the state."
"You gave them everything."
"Not everything."
Nathan turned.
Meredith looked at the closed laptop.
"I copied the files first. You'd shown me how."
Nathan stared at her.
"The memory card."
She nodded.
"I hid the original evidence inside Ismerie's music box. They never knew."
He wanted to forgive her.
God help him, he wanted to.
But he remembered the quarry.
The men forcing him onto wet gravel.
The sharp pain behind his ear.
The terrible moment he realized no one was coming.
"You let me believe you were going to save me."
Meredith looked up.
"I spent every day afterward trying."
"What does that mean?"
"Once I knew you were alive, I started working with Lena."
Lena nodded.
"Meredith contacted us anonymously six months ago. She identified Harbor House, Harlan, and several forged guardianship cases. But she couldn't prove where Nathan was being held."
Nathan faced the investigator.
"Then why didn't you arrest Cole?"
"Because we knew Voss had children under his control. We were building a case that could remove them safely."
"And my daughter was one of them."
Lena had no answer.
Nathan turned away.
Meredith stood unsteadily.
"Nathan, I know you may never forgive me."
He closed his eyes.
"I don't know what I feel."
"I understand."
"No," he whispered. "I don't think you do."
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then the kitchen door opened.
Ismerie stood holding two mugs.
One contained tea.
The other held warm milk.
She looked between her parents.
"I made something."
Nathan immediately softened.
"Thank you, sweetheart."
Ismerie placed the mugs on the coffee table.
"Mommy?"
Meredith wiped her tears.
"Yes, baby?"
"Did you make Daddy go away?"
The question landed harder than any accusation Nathan could have spoken.
Meredith's face crumpled.
"Oh, Ismerie."
"Because the other Daddy said you did."
Nathan stared at his daughter.
"What else did he say?"
Ismerie twisted her pajama sleeve.
"He said Mommy didn't want the old Daddy anymore."
Meredith covered her mouth.
The girl continued.
"And he said if I was good enough, maybe Mommy would stop crying."
Nathan knelt before her.
"Look at me, honey."
She raised her eyes.
"None of this happened because you were bad."
"But I tried to be good."
"I know."
"I ate my food even when it tasted funny."
Nathan felt tears sting his eyes.
He remembered the bowl in the kitchen.
The miserable child forcing herself to swallow something she knew was wrong because she was desperate to please a dangerous adult.
He gently took her hands.
"You never have to hurt yourself to make somebody love you."
Ismerie began sobbing.
Nathan pulled her close.
Meredith knelt beside them.
For a moment, their family existed as three frightened people holding each other on the living room floor.
Then Lena's phone rang.
She stepped into the hallway.
When she returned, her face had changed.
"We have a problem."
Nathan stood.
"What?"
"The state team went to Harbor House with a warrant."
Meredith gripped the sofa.
"And?"
"The building was almost empty."
"Almost?"
"They found eight children. But according to the enrollment records, there should have been seventeen."
Nathan looked toward Ismerie.
"Where are the other nine?"
"We don't know."
Meredith whispered, "Zoey?"
"Not among the eight."
Lena opened her folder.
"There was also a boy listed under a false surname."
She held out a photograph.
A small boy with dark hair and gray eyes.
Nathan stared.
The child's resemblance was unmistakable.
He looked like Nathan had looked at eight years old.
Or Cole.
Lena spoke quietly.
"His name is Theodore. He is nine."
Nathan looked up.
"Cole has a son?"
Meredith nodded slowly.
"Cole told me once that Voss was keeping someone from him."
Lena examined the file.
"Theodore has been in Harbor House for almost four years. His mother died when he was five."
Nathan looked again at the photograph.
His brother had a child.
A boy he had apparently been unable to protect.
Suddenly Cole's desperation made a terrible kind of sense.
Voss hadn't merely offered him money.
He had held his son hostage.
Before Nathan could speak, June entered from the kitchen.
"There's someone outside."
Lena moved toward the window.
A teenage girl stood at the garden gate.
She wore an oversized coat and had blood on one sleeve.
Her face was pale.
Her feet were bare.
June opened the back door.
"Sweetheart, are you hurt?"
The girl looked past her.
"Is Nathan Rowan here?"
Nathan stepped forward.
"I'm Nathan."
The girl stared at his face.
Then began shaking.
"No."
He stopped.
"It's okay."
"No, no, no."
She backed away.
"You look like him!"
Meredith approached slowly.
"Zoey?"
The girl froze.
Meredith covered her mouth.
"Oh, my God."
Zoey Bishop.
The missing girl whose mother had died trying to expose Voss.
She stared at Meredith.
Then whispered, "They found the room."
Lena stepped closer.
"What room?"
Zoey began crying.
"The room under Harbor House. The one where they kept the children who remembered things."
Nathan felt sick.
"Where are they now?"
Zoey looked toward the road.
Then said something that silenced everyone.
"Mr. Voss moved them to the old paper mill."
Nathan's chest tightened.
The mill where his brother had supposedly died twenty years earlier.
Zoey continued.
"And he took Theo with them."
Nathan grabbed his jacket.
Lena raised a hand.
"Nobody is going anywhere until we know what we're dealing with."
But Zoey wasn't finished.
She stared at Nathan.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"Mr. Voss said the little girl with the blue star ruined everything."
Nathan looked at Ismerie.
Zoey's voice trembled.
"He said that if the investigators found the real records, he'd make her pay."
At that moment, the lights went out.
The entire house fell into darkness.
A car door slammed outside.
Then a familiar voice called from the front porch.
"Nathan?"
It was Cole.
His voice cracked.
"Please don't shoot."
A child was crying behind him.
May you like
And Cole shouted the words that changed everything.
"I BROUGHT YOU MY SON. NOW HELP ME SAVE YOUR DAUGHTER!"
