CHAPTER 7 CLARA’S SECRET
Daniel ordered the police to issue a national alert for Nathan.
Clara opposed him.
“If Nathan is working undercover, a public alert will expose him.”
“If he kidnapped Mara, I want every officer in the country looking for him.”
“You don’t know that he kidnapped her.”
“I know he escaped prison.”
“You know someone disappeared using his identity.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Just as someone used Elena’s identity.”
Clara did not answer.
Daniel finally understood.
“You know more than you’ve told us.”
Clara glanced toward Lily.
“Not in front of her.”
Lily folded her arms.
“You work in my foundation.”
Clara’s expression softened.
“You’re right.”
She reached inside her jacket.
Daniel stepped forward, but Clara slowly removed a leather identification wallet.
Inside was a federal badge.
“Special Agent Clara Wynn,” she said. “Financial Crimes and Child Exploitation Task Force.”
Elena looked stunned.
“You infiltrated our foundation?”
“I was assigned to protect it.”
“By lying to us?”
“Arthur’s conviction exposed dozens of people, but we knew his network was larger. We believed someone would contact the Lily Project or attempt to access the evidence collected here.”
Daniel’s voice hardened.
“You suspected my employees.”
“I suspected everyone.”
“Including me?”
“Yes.”
The honesty made Daniel angrier.
Clara continued.
“My sister Sophie was one of Arthur’s early victims. She was twelve when a family adviser convinced my parents that she was dangerous. She spent two years in a private facility.”
Daniel remembered the gold bracelet from the hidden chamber.
The bracelet engraved with Sophie’s name.
“That was your sister?”
Clara nodded.
“The recorder returned to her family proved she had been framed. Lily’s evidence gave my sister her life back.”
Lily looked at Clara differently.
“Is Sophie okay now?”
“She’s learning to be.”
Daniel remained focused.
“What do you know about Bellweather?”
“It began as a program designed to protect wealthy children from kidnapping, inheritance fraud, and family manipulation. At some point, the people running it realized they could create the danger instead.”
“Who created it?”
“We believed Richard Whitmore was one of the original financial backers.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“You should have told me.”
“I needed to know whether you already knew.”
A crash came from Clara’s office downstairs.
They ran toward it.
The door had been forced open.
Her files were gone.
A thin line of blood marked the desk.
On the floor lay another federal badge.
Clara picked it up.
The photograph showed her face.
But the name was different.
ISABEL ROWE.
Elena stared at it.
“Isabel.”
Clara turned the badge over.
A message had been scratched into the metal.
THANK YOUR MOTHER FOR THE FACE.
Clara opened a hidden compartment beneath her desk.
It was empty.
“What was inside?” Daniel asked.
“A complete list of every child the task force believed was connected to Bellweather.”
“Mara?”
Clara shook her head.
“That’s the problem. There was no Mara Mercer.”
Daniel felt a chill.
“What are you saying?”
“The name is false. The birth records are false. The school records are false.”
Elena looked toward the ceiling.
“Then who is she?”
Before Clara could answer, a security alarm sounded from the medical wing.
They returned to Mara’s room.
The bed was empty.
The reinforced window remained locked.
A stuffed rabbit sat on the pillow.
It looked almost identical to Lily’s.
A recording device had been tied around its neck.
Daniel pressed the button.
Lily’s voice played through the speaker.
“Mara, come to the greenhouse. I know where your mother is.”
Lily stared at the device.
“I never said that.”
Clara removed the recorder.
“They copied her voice from the camera in her bedroom.”
Daniel looked toward the dark grounds outside.
The greenhouse stood beyond the east garden.
Marcus called through the radio.
“We found the greenhouse door open.”
“Is Mara inside?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“A drawing.”
Daniel reached the greenhouse moments later.
The child’s drawing lay on a planting table.
It showed St. Agnes Academy beneath a black sky.
Several children stood at the windows.
One figure waited outside.
Nathan.
On the back, Mara had written:
HE SAID HE WAS SORRY.
Daniel stared at the words.
Then Marcus found something beside the door.
A prison identification bracelet.
Nathan’s name was printed across it.
May you like
Below the name was a date.
Tomorrow’s date.
