Chapter 2 - The Nurse Who Disappeared

Elena took Ethan and Caleb to a townhouse in the Garden District that belonged to the Cross Foundation but was rarely used.

Paul checked every room before allowing them inside.

Caleb remained near the door.

“I’m not staying.”

“You are tonight,” Elena said.

“No.”

“You said a man connected to my father may be following Ethan.”

“That is exactly why I don’t want to be in a property your family owns.”

Elena held up her phone.

“I just disabled the exterior network access and told security no one enters without my approval.”

Caleb gave a humorless laugh.

“You think locks stop rich people?”

“No,” Elena said. “That’s why I also called someone who hates my father.”

Ethan sat at the kitchen island, silent.

Elena hated that adults were making decisions around him as if he were evidence instead of a child.

She opened a cabinet and found pasta, canned tomatoes, and olive oil.

“Have you eaten?”

Ethan shook his head.

“I bought a sandwich.”

“And?”

“I gave half to another kid.”

Caleb closed his eyes.

“You had not eaten since yesterday.”

“He was younger.”

Elena turned away before emotion reached her face.

Twenty minutes later, Ethan was eating pasta while Caleb told her what he knew.

“Lydia worked nights in maternity,” he said. “She called me before dawn on March seventeenth, eleven years ago. She sounded terrified.”

“What did she say?”

“That a baby was in danger.”

“My baby?”

“She never gave me a name.”

“Did she tell you who was threatening him?”

“No. She said if she told me too much, I could be forced to tell someone else.”

Elena folded her arms.

“What happened next?”

“She arrived at my apartment around five in the morning carrying a newborn.”

Ethan’s fork stopped.

Caleb looked at him.

“You were wrapped in two hospital blankets. Lydia had no car seat. She had blood on one sleeve and kept checking the window.”

“Blood?” Elena asked.

“She said somebody had been hurt near the service elevator.”

Elena remembered the fire.

“Was there really a fire?”

“Yes. But it was small. Electrical room. Mostly smoke.”

“My father said the nursery had to be evacuated.”

Caleb shook his head.

“Lydia said that story was exaggerated to create confusion.”

Elena sat down.

“Who issued the death certificate?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do.”

A woman’s voice came from the doorway.

Caleb stood instantly.

Paul stepped aside.

Dr. Naomi Bell entered carrying a leather satchel.

At sixty-two, Naomi was still one of the best forensic pathologists in Louisiana and one of Victor Cross’s oldest enemies.

“Elena called me,” Naomi said.

Caleb did not relax.

Naomi looked at Ethan and her face changed.

“Dear God.”

“You recognize him?” Elena asked.

“I recognize Adrian Cole.”

Ethan frowned.

“Who is that?”

Elena swallowed.

“Your father.”

The word hurt.

Ethan looked down at his plate.

Naomi sat across from him.

“May I see your hand?”

“Why?”

“Because Adrian had a congenital crease pattern on his left palm. Completely harmless.”

Ethan slowly opened his left hand.

Naomi exhaled.

The pattern was there.

Caleb stared.

Elena could not stop herself.

She touched Ethan’s fingertips.

He did not pull away.

Naomi turned to Elena.

“The death certificate for your son was signed by Dr. Warren Pike.”

“I remember.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“He wasn’t in the hospital that night.”

Elena stared at her.

Naomi continued.

“He was at a medical conference in Houston. I know because I was there.”

Caleb cursed under his breath.

Elena’s voice went cold.

“How can a physician sign a death certificate when he is four hundred miles away?”

“He can’t. Not legally.”

“Did you know this then?”

“No. I didn’t see the certificate until years later.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because by then Pike was dead and you had already left the city. I assumed there was a clerical error.”

Elena laughed once, bitterly.

“My child was declared dead by a man who wasn’t present. My father’s employee is following the child. A nurse disappears with him, and you thought clerical error?”

Naomi accepted the anger.

“I was wrong.”

Ethan pushed the bowl away.

“Can I ask something?”

Everyone stopped.

“Was Lydia my mother?”

Caleb answered carefully.

“She raised you.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“No.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened.

“Did she know this woman was my mother?”

Caleb looked at Elena.

“I think so.”

“You think?”

“She never told me.”

Ethan stood.

“So everybody lies.”

“Elena didn’t know,” Caleb said.

“You don’t know that.”

The words struck Elena.

He walked toward the stairs.

“Elena,” Naomi warned softly.

Elena followed him.

“Ethan.”

He stopped halfway up.

“You don’t have to believe me.”

“Good.”

“But I will prove whatever I can.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“Can you prove you didn’t give me away?”

Elena felt tears burn.

“I can prove I spent eleven years believing you were dead.”

“That’s not the same.”

“No.”

He looked surprised by the answer.

Elena gripped the railing.

“I’m not asking you to call me Mom. I’m not asking you to trust me because a photograph says you should. I’m asking you to give me time to find the truth.”

Ethan stared at her.

“What if I don’t like the truth?”

“Then I’ll sit beside you while you hate it.”

His expression cracked for half a second.

Then he went upstairs.

Elena returned to the kitchen.

Naomi opened her satchel.

“I brought a DNA kit.”

Caleb immediately objected.

“No.”

Elena looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because if your father controls anyone at the lab—”

“I don’t use my father’s labs.”

Naomi nodded.

“My samples go to an independent facility in Baton Rouge under case numbers.”

Caleb remained tense.

Elena said, “We need certainty.”

He looked toward the stairs.

“Ethan gets a choice.”

“Agreed.”

That answer surprised him.

Naomi took out paperwork.

“Then there’s another issue.”

“What?”

“Adrian.”

Elena’s throat tightened.

Adrian Cole had vanished six weeks after their son’s supposed death.

Police found his car abandoned near Lake Pontchartrain.

Two days later, a body was recovered from the water, badly decomposed.

Victor identified Adrian’s watch.

Elena had never seen the body.

“You think Adrian’s death was staged too?”

Naomi opened a folder.

“I think you were given a story instead of evidence.”

She slid a copy of the autopsy report across the counter.

Elena read the height.

Six feet, one inch.

Adrian had been six feet, three.

She read the old fracture notes.

The body had a healed fracture in the right wrist.

Adrian had broken his left wrist at nineteen.

Elena looked up.

“This wasn’t him.”

“I don’t think so.”

Caleb leaned over the report.

“Then where is he?”

A noise came from the back hallway.

Paul appeared.

“We have a problem.”

Elena stood.

“What kind?”

“Someone tried to access the property camera system remotely.”

“From where?”

“Cross Holdings.”

Elena’s face hardened.

“My father.”

Paul nodded.

“Or someone using his internal network.”

Caleb moved toward the stairs.

“We leave now.”

“No,” Elena said.

“You’re not keeping us here.”

“I’m not. But running without knowing where we’re going is how we get cornered.”

She called her assistant.

“Maya, I need you to do something without logging it through the office.”

“Name it.”

“Find every property Lydia Hayes rented, owned, inherited, or paid taxes on in the last fifteen years.”

Maya hesitated.

“That’s broad.”

“Make it narrow. Start outside Orleans Parish. Use public records only.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“All right.”

Elena ended the call.

Naomi looked at the locket.

“What else did Lydia leave?”

Caleb went still.

“A notebook.”

Ethan’s voice came from the stairs.

Everyone turned.

He was holding an old canvas backpack.

“I found it after she died.”

Caleb frowned.

“You told me that bag was school stuff.”

“It was mostly school stuff.”

Ethan placed the backpack on the table.

Inside were notebooks, a flashlight, two shirts, and a sealed envelope.

Elena recognized the handwriting on the front.

She had seen it once before on a medication chart.

Lydia Hayes.

The envelope said:

FOR ELENA CROSS, IF ETHAN FINDS HER.

Caleb whispered, “She knew.”

Ethan looked at Elena.

“Open it.”

Elena broke the seal.

Inside was one sheet of paper.

Only three sentences.

Elena,

I did not steal your son.

I stole him back.

If you want to know from whom, find the house with the blue ceiling before Victor does.

Elena read the last line twice.

Then her phone vibrated.

A text from an unknown number.

YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT WALKING.

Caleb saw her face.

“What?”

Elena showed him.

A second message arrived.

THE BOY SURVIVED ONCE. DO NOT MAKE US CORRECT THE MISTAKE.

Ethan was standing close enough to read it.

His face went pale.

Elena turned the phone face down.

“No one is touching you.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“Yes, I can.”

Caleb stared at her.

“You really believe money makes promises true.”

Elena looked at him.

“No. I believe evidence changes who has power.”

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She picked up Lydia’s letter.

“And now we have our first piece.”