Chapter 3 - The Room Behind the Furnace
Police searched Dad’s house that evening.
Robert objected.
Mark objected louder.
Neither could stop the warrant.
The locked room existed.
Behind the furnace.
Hidden behind shelving.
Inside were boxes of medical records, videotapes, old photographs and two metal filing cabinets.
Most paperwork had been partially burned.
Not enough.
Detective Laura Bennett interviewed me at the hospital.
“Daniel, was your father involved in medicine?”
“No.”
“Your brother?”
“Insurance.”
“What does Robert do?”
“Retired financial consultant.”
She looked down.
“Your father served on the board of something called Hawthorne Behavioral Institute.”
I had never heard of it.
“What is that?”
“Private psychiatric treatment facility. Closed fifteen years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
One year after my accident.
“Where?”
“West Virginia.”
The photograph Eli stole had been taken there.
Not Richmond.
Not Virginia.
West Virginia.
Six months before the accident that supposedly began everything.
I stared at the wall.
“Why was I there?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
Hawthorne’s records had mostly vanished after bankruptcy.
But the boxes in Dad’s basement contained patient intake summaries.
Two names repeatedly appeared together.
Daniel Morgan.
Caleb Shaw.
Same date of birth.
Same blood type.
Same height.
Nearly identical physical descriptions.
Then Bennett showed me an intake photograph.
Caleb alone.
He looked like me.
Not similar.
Identical.
My twin.
“I don’t have a twin.”
“You may.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because my brain rejected the alternative.
“My mother would’ve told me.”
“Your mother died when you were nineteen?”
“Yes.”
“Would your father?”
I stopped laughing.
The question hurt because I already knew the answer.
Maybe not.
Then police recovered audio from an old cassette.
Robert’s voice.
Sixteen years younger.
“We cannot send Daniel back in this condition.”
Another man answered:
“Which Daniel?”
Silence.
Then Dad:
“The one my wife raised.”
My stomach dropped.
The recording continued.
“He remembers too much.”
“What about Caleb?”
“He remembers nothing.”
My hands began shaking.
Detective Bennett stopped the tape.
“We need to authenticate all of this.”
“What does it sound like to you?”
“I’m not guessing.”
Good answer.
I needed that.
Then she gave me another fact.
Caleb Shaw existed legally until age twenty-two.
His birth certificate listed:
Mother: Elaine Morgan.
Father: Robert Morgan.
My parents.
His surname changed at age three through a sealed guardianship proceeding.
Guardians:
Thomas and Anna Shaw.
I stared.
“My parents gave him away?”
“We don’t know why.”
“Where are the Shaws?”
“Dead.”
Both in a house fire when Caleb was seventeen.
Afterward Caleb entered state care.
Then disappeared from official records five years later.
The same year as my accident.
My phone rang.
Mark.
I answered on speaker.
“Daniel, stop.”
“You knew I had a twin?”
Silence.
“Mark?”
He whispered:
“You need to get Eli out of that hospital.”
Detective Bennett looked at me.
“Why?”
“Dad knows you found the room.”
“He already knows.”
“No.”
Mark sounded frightened.
“You don’t understand. Dad isn’t the person you should be afraid of.”
That surprised me.
“Then who?”
Another pause.
“The man in the photograph.”
“Caleb?”
Mark inhaled sharply.
“He’s alive.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“I expect you to remember why Dad made you forget him.”
The call disconnected.
Thirty seconds later, hospital security rushed past Eli’s room.
A man had entered the building using identification belonging to a dead physician.
Security cameras captured his face.
Detective Bennett turned the monitor toward me.
Older.
Bearded.
Scar across one cheek.
But unmistakable.
Caleb Shaw.
May you like
My twin.
He was already inside the hospital.
