Chapter 3 - BLACKWOOD HOUSEBy noon, Graham understood the truth well enough to be terrified by how much he still didn’t understand.
Sloane had not simply wanted Maisie gone.
She had wanted Graham discredited.
The forged medical forms.
The strange medication.
The comments to Maisie about her father being “sick.”
Everything pointed in one direction.
Someone was building a story in which Graham Grant was unstable, possibly dangerous, and incapable of managing either his daughter or her trust.
Jonah sent officers to locate Dr. Adrian Vale.
His office address led to an empty suite in a suburban medical complex.
His professional license had expired four years earlier.
Blackwood House was equally strange.
Its website looked legitimate.
Beautiful stone buildings.
Smiling children.
Phrases like therapeutic growth, family restoration, and evidence-based intervention appeared everywhere.
But the address on Maisie’s paperwork did not match the address listed online.
Graham noticed it immediately.
“The intake forms say Stowe.”
Jonah looked at the website.
“This says Burlington.”
“So where were they taking my daughter?”
“We’re finding out.”
Graham’s instinct was to get in his car and drive north himself.
Jonah refused.
“If you go chasing people connected to a possible fraud network, you make my job harder.”
“My daughter was supposed to be delivered to them last night.”
“And she wasn’t.”
“They were expecting her.”
“Yes.”
“Then somebody knows why.”
Jonah stared at him.
“Graham, you are angry.”
“Correct.”
“You’re also scared.”
Graham said nothing.
“Angry, scared fathers make terrible undercover investigators.”
Graham turned away.
“You think I’m going to sit here?”
“I think you’re going to stay with Maisie.”
That ended the argument.
For approximately thirty minutes.
Then Paige came into Graham’s office carrying her laptop.
“I found Ethan Mercer.”
Graham looked up.
“What?”
“I searched old business records.”
“Jonah told us not to contact anybody.”
“I didn’t.”
She set the laptop down.
“I found an old local newspaper archive.”
The headline made Graham’s stomach tighten.
LOCAL FATHER SUES YOUTH FACILITY AFTER SON’S HOSPITALIZATION
The photograph showed Ethan Mercer standing outside a courthouse.
Beside him was the little boy from Sloane’s picture.
Caleb.
Graham read rapidly.
Eight years earlier, Ethan had sued a residential treatment facility called Ridgeway Center after his son allegedly suffered injuries while enrolled there.
Ridgeway had claimed Caleb was violent.
Ethan claimed the allegations were fabricated.
The facility closed before trial.
Its director disappeared from public records.
The director’s name was not Adrian Vale.
But the consulting psychiatrist was.
Graham called Jonah.
Thirty minutes later they were on a video call with Ethan Mercer.
The man on the screen was in his early forties now.
Dark hair.
Tired eyes.
He stared at Graham for a long time after hearing Sloane’s current name.
“You were going to marry Catherine?”
“Yes.”
Ethan laughed without humor.
“Then you got lucky.”
Graham didn’t feel lucky.
“She tried to send my daughter to Blackwood House.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“Blackwood?”
“You know it?”
“Not by that name.”
“What does that mean?”
Ethan leaned back.
“These places change names.”
Graham felt his jaw tighten.
“Tell me what happened.”
Ethan was silent for several seconds.
Then he began.
He met Catherine Rowe through a friend.
She was funny.
Warm.
Patient with his son.
Caleb’s mother had died when he was four, and Ethan had struggled as a single father.
Catherine seemed like an answer to every problem he had.
Graham’s skin crawled.
The story sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
“About six months after we got married,” Ethan said, “Caleb started changing.”
“How?”
“Nightmares. Anger. Panic attacks.”
“What caused them?”
“I thought grief.”
Ethan looked directly into the camera.
“Catherine told me he was becoming violent.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
“She convinced you?”
“For a while.”
Graham looked down.
Shame moved through him.
Ethan saw it.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Blame yourself for believing someone you loved.”
“I should have seen it.”
“So should I.”
“What happened?”
“She started documenting everything. Scratches. Broken dishes. Tantrums. Then she introduced Dr. Vale.”
Graham’s hands curled into fists.
“Same doctor.”
“Vale said Caleb had severe attachment disorder. Said he needed residential treatment.”
“And you agreed?”
Ethan looked away.
“That question still wakes me up.”
Graham immediately regretted asking.
“What happened at the facility?”
“They drugged him.”
Paige covered her mouth.
“They kept him in isolation. Restrained him. Told him his father didn’t want him.”
Graham’s chest tightened.
“How long?”
“Eleven days.”
“Only eleven?”
“Long enough.”
Ethan’s voice cracked slightly.
“I went there without warning. Catherine said I shouldn’t. Vale said visits would interrupt treatment.”
“But you went.”
“I found my son wearing someone else’s clothes.”
Nobody spoke.
Ethan continued.
“He had bruises on both arms.”
Graham looked toward the living room where Maisie was coloring beside Paige’s friend.
“What happened to Catherine?”
“She disappeared.”
“While you were married?”
“She emptied one of my accounts and vanished before I could get Caleb home.”
“How much?”
“Almost eighty thousand.”
“That’s all?”
Ethan frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The notes Sloane kept about Maisie’s trust suggest something bigger.”
Ethan became very still.
“How much money is in your daughter’s trust?”
Graham didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Ethan shook his head.
“Then this wasn’t the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“She learned.”
“Learned what?”
“How to make the target bigger.”
Graham felt cold.
Ethan told them Catherine had targeted at least one other family after his.
A businessman in Indiana.
Widower.
Two daughters.
The relationship ended before marriage when the older daughter accused Catherine of stealing medication.
Catherine disappeared.
Then there was another man in Illinois.
Divorced.
One son.
He died in a single-car accident six months after marrying a woman matching Catherine’s description.
Jonah, listening from the police station, interrupted.
“Name?”
“Thomas Keene.”
Jonah typed.
The silence that followed lasted too long.
“What?” Graham demanded.
Jonah looked at the screen.
“Thomas Keene’s widow inherited his estate.”
Graham stared.
“Was the widow Catherine?”
“Her name was Lauren Price.”
One of the fake IDs.
Paige whispered, “Oh my God.”
Jonah kept reading.
“Keene’s son was placed in residential care three weeks before the accident.”
Graham’s stomach twisted.
Sloane’s method was becoming visible.
Isolate the child.
Discredit the father.
Control the finances.
And sometimes—
something worse.
“What happened to the boy?” Graham asked.
Jonah scrolled.
“Placed with maternal grandparents.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Graham breathed again.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
Jonah immediately raised a hand.
“Put it on speaker.”
Graham answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then Sloane’s voice.
“You embarrassed me.”
Every muscle in Graham’s body tightened.
“Where are you?”
“You let those people open my private things.”
“You drugged me.”
Sloane laughed softly.
“You drink too much.”
“I had blood and hair samples taken.”
That silenced her.
Graham continued.
“If you drugged me, they’ll find it.”
“You really think anyone is going to believe you?”
“Yes.”
“No, Graham. They’re going to believe evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“That you lose control when you’re angry.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You’ve never seen me lose control.”
“I have video.”
He looked at Jonah.
The detective motioned for him to continue.
“Video of what?”
“You yelling.”
“I’ve yelled before.”
“You breaking things.”
Graham frowned.
Then remembered.
Six months earlier, a contractor had cheated his company.
Graham had thrown a coffee mug against the wall of his home office after a heated phone call.
Sloane had been there.
Apparently recording.
“You set that up.”
“I didn’t make you throw the mug.”
“What do you want?”
“To fix this.”
“There is nothing to fix.”
“We can still get married.”
Paige stared at the phone as if Sloane were insane.
Graham almost laughed.
“You think I’m marrying you after this?”
“You don’t understand what happens if you don’t.”
“Threatening me isn’t helping.”
“I’m warning you.”
“About what?”
“Blackwood.”
The room went quiet.
Graham’s pulse accelerated.
“What about it?”
“You think I was sending Maisie somewhere dangerous.”
“You were.”
“No.”
“Then where?”
Sloane exhaled.
“When you opened that suitcase, you interrupted something much bigger than our wedding.”
Graham’s grip tightened on the phone.
“What?”
“People were expecting Maisie.”
“I know.”
“They already spent money.”
“Whose money?”
“You should stop asking questions.”
“Tell me where Blackwood House is.”
Sloane laughed once.
Then her voice changed.
“Check your front porch.”
The call ended.
Graham looked at Jonah.
“Don’t move.”
Jonah contacted local police.
Two officers arrived within minutes.
A small package sat outside Graham’s front door.
No postage.
No delivery label.
Inside was one object.
Maisie’s other stuffed rabbit.
The one she kept at her grandmother’s house.
Graham stared at it.
Then realized something.
His mother lived twenty miles away.
He called.
No answer.
Called again.
Nothing.
A text message appeared on Graham’s phone.
Unknown number.
Your mother should have stayed out of this.
Below it was a photograph.
His mother, Lorraine Grant, sat in a chair.
Her wrists were tied.
May you like
And behind her, painted across a concrete wall, were two black words:
BLACKWOOD HOUSE.
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