Chapter 9 - What Sarah Found
Daniel opened the door.
I was sitting on the floor.
Alive.
Shaken.
Furious.
I had not been abducted.
Not exactly.
I had followed a man from my apartment building after recognizing the split-circle necklace in his hand.
The necklace from my childhood memory.
He led me to the storage building.
Then disappeared.
I entered.
The door locked behind me.
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
“Was it Aaron?”
I looked at him.
“No.”
Aaron exhaled.
Daniel helped me stand.
I recognized him immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“For watching me?”
“Yes.”
“For involving my children?”
My voice broke there.
“I thought whoever was following me cared only about the past.”
I had been wrong.
Inside the room, I found the original Bennett file.
My father had not merely witnessed Nathan’s escape.
He had worked for William.
For six months.
Thomas Bennett helped create false witness statements.
Then discovered children were being psychologically manipulated.
He tried to expose it.
That made him dangerous.
Nathan found Thomas’s confession.
That was why he ran to our house.
He knew our father had already turned against William.
Daniel asked:
“What did you find about Nathan?”
I handed him a page.
Nathan had discovered another child in Cross’s program.
Not Aaron.
A girl.
Subject M.
Daniel stared.
“M?”
The girl had been placed with Cross temporarily after her mother died.
She was used differently.
Not as a double.
As an observer.
Cross wanted to know whether children could identify manipulated memories in others.
Subject M was unusually good at noticing inconsistencies.
Nathan befriended her.
Before disappearing, he promised to take her with him.
He failed.
“What happened to her?”
I handed Daniel another document.
Subject M was relocated.
New identity.
New guardian.
The guardian’s name made him stop.
Thomas Bennett.
My father.
Laura and I had grown up with a third girl for almost a year.
I barely remembered her.
Then she disappeared from our family photographs.
Laura claimed there had never been another child.
Just like Daniel had been taught to doubt Aaron.
The pattern repeated.
“Her name?” Daniel asked.
I showed him.
Miriam Cross.
Aaron stumbled backward.
“My sister.”
Everyone stared.
Aaron whispered:
“She died when I was six.”
No.
She didn’t.
Dr. Cross placed her with the Bennetts under another name.
Then removed her again.
Why?
Because Miriam remembered too much.
Daniel asked:
“Where is she now?”
I looked at the locked room.
“I think she’s the person who brought me here.”
Aaron’s face changed.
Then Margaret whispered:
“If Miriam survived…”
May you like
She looked terrified.
“She’s the only person who knew where Nathan went.”
