CHAPTER 24 — THE OTHER CHILD
Margaret had taken the fishing boat.
Claire watched it disappear through the fog.
“She is going to Lake Emery,” Mason said.
“Why run if she was telling the truth?”
“Because Peter knows something she does not want you to hear.”
Dana drove them inland.
Cole contacted no police officers. Sarah’s public accusation had turned every law-enforcement database against him.
By evening, they reached Lake Emery Medical Retreat.
The facility had closed two years earlier.
One room on the upper floor still had electricity.
Claire found Peter sitting beside a window.
He was thinner than the man she remembered.
A tremor moved through his right hand.
When he saw Claire, he stood.
“Margaret?”
Claire stopped.
“It’s me. Claire.”
His eyes filled with confusion.
Then recognition.
“My little girl.”
She crossed the room and held him.
For one brief moment, she was not a mother running from Gray Tide.
She was a daughter whose dead father had returned.
Then Peter whispered, “You should never have brought the child.”
Lily stood in the hallway with Elaine.
Peter backed away.
“Sarah will find her.”
“She already has.”
“No. Not Sarah.”
“Then who?”
Peter pressed both hands against his head.
His memories seemed to arrive in broken pieces.
“The hospital. Two bassinets. Margaret crying. One child stayed. One child left.”
Claire felt cold.
“What children?”
Peter looked at her.
“You and the other baby.”
Claire stared at him.
“I did not have a sister.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Margaret made me sign the death certificate.”
Mason closed the door behind them.
“What happened to the second child?”
“Sarah took her.”
“Why?”
Peter looked toward Lily.
“To preserve both lines.”
Claire moved closer.
“What was my sister’s name?”
“Caroline.”
The name struck something deep inside her.
An image.
A lullaby her mother used to sing.
Two little stars above the sea.
One comes home, and one stays free.
“Is Caroline alive?”
Peter reached into his shirt and removed a second Number Nine key.
“She was alive when they brought me here.”
“Who brought you?”
“Olivia.”
Claire remembered the photograph.
“Why was Olivia helping Sarah?”
“She was not helping Sarah.”
Peter looked terrified.
“She was hiding from Margaret.”
A sound came from the ventilation system.
Sarah’s voice filled the room.
“You always talked too much, Peter.”
The doors locked.
Gas hissed through the ceiling.
Cole fired at the window.
Reinforced glass.
Mason searched Peter’s medicine cabinet and found oxygen masks.
There were only four.
Seven people stood in the room.
Claire placed one over Lily’s face.
Elaine gave another to Peter.
Cole handed his to Claire.
She refused.
“Use it.”
“You have a daughter.”
“So do you.”
He forced the mask into her hands.
Peter pointed toward the floor.
“Room Nine.”
Mason found a hidden lever beneath the bed.
A section of flooring opened.
They climbed down as gas filled the room.
Peter came last.
Before closing the hatch, he looked into the hallway.
Margaret stood beyond the glass door.
She had arrived alone.
Sarah’s voice spoke again.
“Ask your mother which daughter she chose.”
Margaret pressed her hand against the glass.
Peter whispered, “She chose you.”
May you like
The hatch closed.
Above them, a gunshot echoed.
