Chapter 3 - THE NAME SHE HAD BEEN FORCED TO FORGET
By the time I reached St. Catherine Children’s Hospital, two detectives were already waiting outside Wren’s room.
One of them introduced herself as Detective Lena Ortiz.
She was somewhere in her forties, with dark hair pulled into a practical knot and the kind of expression that suggested she had spent years learning how to tell the difference between panic and truth.
Her partner, Detective Aaron Mills, stood beside her holding a tablet.
“Dr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“How is Wren?”
“The infection is being treated. Oral surgery is evaluating whether the tooth can be saved.”
“And Celestine?”
Ortiz’s mouth tightened.
“That is complicated.”
Those three words immediately worried me.
“What does complicated mean?”
“It means the paperwork she presented is sophisticated enough that the officers at your clinic could not immediately establish that it was fraudulent.”
“You know she kidnapped Wren.”
“We know Wren Morgan was reported missing eighty-seven days ago. We know Celestine Holloway presented herself as the child’s mother. We also know she produced a temporary guardianship order that appears, on its face, to have come through a legitimate court system.”
“She is not Wren’s guardian.”
“I agree.”
“Then arrest her.”
Ortiz watched me for a second.
“She was detained for questioning. Her attorney arrived before the missing-person confirmation came through. At that point, we had suspicious injuries and a child’s statement, but the guardianship order had not yet been disproved.”
My stomach dropped.
“You let her leave?”
“A prosecutor declined to authorize a holding charge until we confirmed the identity discrepancy.”
“Where is she now?”
“We don’t know.”
I stared at her.
Ortiz did not look defensive.
She looked furious.
Which somehow frightened me more.
“You lost her.”
“We had officers assigned to follow her vehicle. She switched cars inside a private parking garage. We found the first vehicle thirty minutes later.”
My thoughts went immediately to Wren.
“And you’re telling me this outside her room?”
“She has security.”
“How much?”
“Enough that nobody gets through that door without being checked.”
I looked through the window.
Wren lay in the hospital bed with an IV in her arm and a cooling cloth across her forehead.
Naomi Price sat beside her.
Wren was awake.
And watching the doorway.
The second she saw me, something in her shoulders relaxed.
Ortiz noticed.
“She has asked for you four times.”
“I’m a dentist.”
“Right now, you’re the adult who believed her.”
That sentence landed somewhere painful.
I looked away.
Ten years earlier, Emmett Rusk had needed exactly that.
An adult who believed him.
I had been close enough to become that person.
And I had failed.
Ortiz apparently read something in my face.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
It was not completely true.
But this was not about me.
We entered.
Wren looked smaller in the hospital bed than she had in my dental chair.
A pediatric oral surgeon had drained the infected area, and antibiotics were running through the IV. Her fever had begun to fall, though the swelling remained.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.”
“You gave everybody quite a scare.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You never apologize for being sick.”
She thought about that.
Then looked toward Detective Ortiz.
“Did you find Ivy?”
“Not yet,” Ortiz said gently. “That’s why we need your help.”
Wren immediately pulled the blanket higher.
Naomi leaned forward.
“You’re safe here.”
Wren looked at me.
“Can he stay?”
“Yes,” Ortiz said.
I pulled a chair beside the bed.
“No pressure,” I told Wren. “You answer only what you can.”
She nodded.
Ortiz did not begin with the basement.
She started with Wren’s real name.
Her school.
Her mother.
Her apartment in Chicago.
The park across the street.
The stuffed fox she had slept with since she was three.
Small facts.
Safe facts.
And slowly, Wren began returning to herself.
Her mother was Elise Morgan.
A forensic accountant.
Her father had died when she was four.
She attended Lakeview Academy.
Her best friend was named Sophie.
She loved astronomy.
She hated mushrooms.
She remembered the night she disappeared.
“My mom was working late,” Wren whispered.
“Where?” Ortiz asked.
“At home.”
“Was anyone else there?”
Wren shook her head.
“She told me not to answer the door.”
“What happened?”
“There was a fire alarm.”
Ortiz leaned slightly forward.
“In your building?”
Wren nodded.
“Everybody went downstairs. A lady said my mom had sent her because she had to get her laptop.”
“Was that Celestine?”
“No.”
That surprised all of us.
“A different woman?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe her?”
Wren hesitated.
“Red hair. Glasses.”
Ortiz glanced at Mills.
He typed something.
“The woman walked me around the corner. Then a black car came.”
“Who was inside?”
“Celestine.”
Wren’s fingers curled into the blanket.
“And a man.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know his real name.”
“What did Celestine call him?”
Wren stared at the ceiling.
“Everett.”
Ortiz and Mills exchanged a look.
“You remember a last name?”
“Pike.”
Mills stopped typing.
“Everett Pike?”
Wren nodded.
He immediately stepped into the hallway with his phone.
Ortiz remained still.
“Did they hurt you that night?”
Wren shook her head.
“Not at first.”
My hands tightened together.
“What did they tell you?” Ortiz asked.
“That my mom had done something bad and they needed to protect me.”
“Did you believe them?”
“For one day.”
“And then?”
Wren looked toward me.
“Then Celestine asked me where my mom kept the blue drive.”
Ortiz’s eyes sharpened.
“What blue drive?”
“I don’t know.”
“She thought you knew?”
Wren nodded.
“She kept asking.”
“Was Ivy already there?”
“No.”
“When did Ivy arrive?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“I don’t know. Maybe twenty sleeps.”
“What did Ivy say her name was?”
“Ivy Chen.”
Ortiz went still.
Mills returned to the room.
His expression told us he had found something.
“Ivy Chen,” he said. “Ten years old. Missing from Evanston fifty-nine days. Father is Nolan Chen.”
Wren began trembling.
“Is her dad okay?”
“We don’t know yet,” Ortiz said.
Wren turned toward the window.
“She thinks he’s dead.”
“Why?”
“Celestine told her.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Ortiz asked the question we were all afraid of.
“Where is the basement?”
Wren described a large stone house surrounded by trees.
A long driveway.
Black iron gates.
A glass greenhouse behind the main house.
A basement door hidden behind a wine-storage wall.
Two small rooms.
No windows.
A bathroom with no lock.
A camera in the ceiling.
Sometimes Celestine came downstairs.
Usually Everett did.
I had to look away when Wren described the rules.
No shouting.
No standing on the beds.
No touching the camera.
No asking what day it was.
Meals depended on cooperation.
Blankets could be removed as punishment.
The light stayed on all night if they refused to answer questions.
“What did they want from Ivy?” Ortiz asked.
“A password.”
“What password?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Ivy?”
Wren shook her head.
“She kept saying her dad never told her.”
Ortiz stood.
“We have enough for the house.”
Mills was already making the call.
A warrant application began immediately.
Wren closed her eyes.
“Will they get there before Celestine?”
“We’re going to try.”
“That means no.”
Ortiz crouched beside the bed.
“It means I won’t lie to you.”
Wren opened her eyes.
That seemed to matter.
A nurse entered to check her IV.
For the next twenty minutes, I stayed while the detectives coordinated the search.
Then Ortiz’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her expression changed.
“They have the address.”
“Is it the house?” I asked.
“She gave enough landmarks. Property is registered to a Holloway Family Relief subsidiary in Carmel.”
My pulse jumped.
“How soon?”
“Team is moving now.”
Wren looked toward the door.
“Can my mom come?”
Ortiz softened.
“She’s already on her way from Chicago.”
Wren stopped breathing for what felt like a second.
“My mom knows?”
“She knows you’re alive.”
Wren covered her face and cried.
This time they were different tears.
I stayed until she slept.
Then Ortiz stepped into the hallway with me.
“There’s another problem,” she said.
“What?”
She showed me a photograph on her phone.
Everett Pike.
Forty-three.
Former private-security contractor.
Short-cropped hair.
Square face.
Cold eyes.
I had never seen him before.
But the background of the photograph made my skin crawl.
He was standing beside Celestine at a Holloway Family Relief fundraiser.
Behind them was a banner.
PROTECTING CHILDREN WHEN FAMILIES ARE IN CRISIS.
“He ran security for the foundation,” Ortiz said.
“And now?”
“Officially resigned six months ago.”
“Unofficially?”
“We don’t know.”
An alarm sounded somewhere down the hall.
Not a fire alarm.
A security tone.
Two nurses hurried past us.
Ortiz’s radio exploded with voices.
“Lock the floor.”
“What happened?” I asked.
She was already moving.
“Stay here.”
A hospital security officer came running from the opposite corridor.
“Detective!”
“What?”
“Man in facilities uniform attempted access to Room 814.”
Wren’s room.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Where is he?”
“Ran when challenged.”
Ortiz pulled the photograph of Everett back onto her phone.
“Was this him?”
The security officer looked once.
His face drained.
“Yes.”
Ortiz shouted into her radio.
“Seal every exit.”
I turned toward Wren’s door.
The room appeared empty.
The blanket was pushed aside.
The bed rails were down.
The IV pole stood beside the mattress with its line dangling.
For one horrifying second, I could not move.
Then I ran inside.
“Wren?”
No answer.
The bathroom was empty.
The chair was overturned.
The window was sealed.
Ortiz reached the doorway behind me.
May you like
Her face went white.
And somewhere inside the hospital, an eight-year-old child who had escaped one basement was missing again.
