Chapter 4
THE LAST PAGE
Grace read Nora's message three times.
MOM'S NAME IS ON THE LAST PAGE.
Helen saw her face.
"What?"
Grace looked at her mother.
"What is on the last page?"
Helen shook her head.
"I don't know."
"Wrong answer."
"I don't."
Claire sat on the ground while a paramedic bandaged the graze along her ribs.
Ethan refused to leave her side.
Detective Ortiz coordinated the tactical team.
No one was allowed into Green House until they knew where Marcus and Nora were.
Grace wanted to tear through the glass herself.
Instead she stared at Helen.
"The last page."
Helen's hands shook.
"Green House kept outcome records."
"Meaning?"
"Which infants went where."
"Your daughter went to the Caldwells."
"Yes."
"So what else could your name mean?"
Helen sat on a concrete barrier.
"I worked there for two years after I found out my baby might be alive."
"You worked for the people who stole her?"
"I worked inside because I wanted records."
Grace stopped.
"You infiltrated them."
"I suppose."
"Did you help other women?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"I don't know."
Amara stood nearby, listening.
Helen looked at her.
"Lila was one."
Amara nodded slowly.
"Then why would Nora warn me about your name?"
Helen closed her eyes.
"Because I made mistakes."
Grace almost laughed.
"That phrase is doing a lot of work."
Helen accepted it.
"One woman begged me to hide her baby."
"What happened?"
"I did."
"Where?"
"With a couple I trusted."
"And?"
"Marcus found out."
Grace waited.
"He threatened to send me to prison and expose every mother I had helped."
"So?"
Helen's voice broke.
"I gave him the location."
Amara whispered, "Oh."
Grace felt cold.
"What happened to the baby?"
"Marcus took her."
"And the mother?"
Helen began crying.
"She killed herself."
Grace stepped back.
The story had finally reached the part Helen could not call protection.
"You traded one child for many."
"I told myself that."
"But it was one child."
"Yes."
"Do you know what happened to her?"
"No."
Grace stared at her.
"What was the mother's name?"
Helen whispered, "Ruth Ellis."
Amara froze.
"My grandmother was Ruth Ellis."
Everyone looked at her.
Amara's face went white.
"My mother told me her mother died when she was an infant."
Helen covered her mouth.
Grace understood.
"The hidden baby was Lila."
Helen nodded.
Amara backed away.
"You gave my mother to Marcus."
"I am sorry."
"She ended up back with Ruth's family somehow."
"I don't know how."
Amara laughed bitterly.
"So you saved me thirty years later because you failed my mother."
Helen nodded.
"Yes."
Amara turned away.
Grace followed.
"Amara."
"Don't."
Grace stopped.
Amara breathed slowly.
"My whole life, my mother has been terrified of hospitals. She panics around paperwork. She made me promise never to use a private adoption agency if we had children."
Grace's heart hurt.
"Lila knew."
"Maybe."
"Call her."
Amara looked at Grace.
"After Nora."
Grace nodded.
A tactical officer approached Ortiz.
"We found the sublevel entrance."
Grace moved closer.
"Can you hear them?"
"Not yet."
Then a speaker mounted outside the greenhouse crackled.
Marcus Caldwell's voice filled the yard.
"Grace Hart."
Everyone froze.
"Bring Helen inside."
Grace looked at her mother.
Marcus continued.
"Alone."
Ortiz shook her head.
"No."
Marcus laughed through the speaker.
"Detective, you already failed this family once."
Ortiz's jaw tightened.
"If anyone enters except Helen, Nora dies."
Grace shouted toward the building.
"Let my sister go."
Marcus replied.
"Your sister stole from me."
"She exposed you."
"Semantics."
Helen stood.
"I'll go."
Grace grabbed her.
"No."
"This started with me."
"No. It started with him."
Helen looked at her.
"It continued because I was afraid."
Grace did not release her.
Helen touched the bruise on Grace's cheek.
"I am sorry I hit you."
Grace laughed through tears.
"You think?"
"No excuse."
"Good."
"But let me do one useful thing."
Ortiz fitted Helen with a wire.
Grace hated every second.
Helen walked into Green House.
They listened from the command van.
Her footsteps echoed.
Marcus's voice appeared faintly.
"You got old."
Helen answered.
"So did you."
"Not gracefully."
"I never did anything for your approval."
"You did plenty for my fear."
Silence.
Then Nora.
"Mom?"
Grace gripped the table.
Helen's voice broke.
"Nora."
Marcus said, "The ledger."
"I don't have it."
"Then Grace does."
"No."
"Where is it?"
"I burned it."
A slap.
Grace jumped.
Amara grabbed her hand.
Helen recovered.
"Still weak when women say no, Marcus?"
He laughed.
"You were easier at sixteen."
Grace's stomach turned.
Then Nora shouted, "Don't."
Helen's voice became cold.
"Tell them what you did to my baby."
Marcus was silent.
"Tell Nora."
"Claire had a good life."
"That is not an answer."
"Better than you could have given her."
Grace saw Ethan react.
Claire closed her eyes.
Marcus continued.
"You were a child. Poor. Unmarried."
"I was her mother."
"You were inconvenient."
The word seemed to poison the air.
Helen said, "That is why I spent thirty years collecting names."
Grace froze.
Collecting names.
Marcus changed tone.
"What names?"
Helen laughed softly.
"You never knew."
"Know what?"
"The last page."
Grace leaned closer to the speaker.
Helen continued.
"I wrote it."
Marcus went silent.
"The ledger ends with forty-seven children," Helen said. "Mine ends with fifty-three."
Grace stared.
Six more.
Marcus whispered, "Impossible."
"I found women you missed. Nurses you couldn't buy. Clerks you forgot existed."
"Where is it?"
"Safe."
"Where?"
"With Nora."
Nora gasped.
Marcus cursed.
A struggle erupted.
Ortiz signaled the team.
Gunshot.
Grace screamed.
The audio exploded with static.
Then Nora shouted, "Now!"
Ortiz sent officers in.
Grace followed before anyone could stop her.
Amara ran behind.
They descended through a broken stairwell into a concrete basement.
The smell of mold and antiseptic clung to the air.
A door stood open.
Inside, Marcus Caldwell lay bleeding from the leg.
Helen held his gun.
Nora stood behind her.
Alive.
Grace saw her sister.
Everything else disappeared.
Nora was thinner.
Her hair shorter.
A scar crossed one eyebrow.
But it was Nora.
Grace ran.
They crashed into each other.
Four years of anger came out as one sound.
Grace hit her sister's shoulder.
Then hugged her harder.
"You left."
"I know."
"You let me think you were dead."
"I know."
"I hate you."
"I know."
"I love you."
Nora began sobbing.
"I know."
Behind them, officers arrested Marcus.
Helen dropped the gun.
Amara stood in the doorway crying.
Jamie appeared at the top of the stairs with June and Ethan despite every police instruction.
"Mom!"
Nora turned.
Jamie ran.
She collapsed to her knees and caught him.
Grace watched her sister become a mother in front of her.
Ethan did not move.
Nora looked up.
Their eyes met.
Four years.
A dead baby that had never died.
A love story weaponized by someone else's father.
Ethan whispered, "Hi."
Nora laughed through tears.
"Hi."
Jamie looked between them.
"My face," he said.
Nora smiled.
"Yes."
Then Claire entered with a medic.
Nora stood and hugged her.
For one impossible minute, all the missing people were alive.
Grace thought that might be the end.
Then Helen walked to a rusted filing cabinet.
She pulled open the bottom drawer.
Empty.
Her face changed.
"No."
Grace looked at her.
"What?"
"The real last page."
"Gone?"
Helen nodded.
Marcus laughed from the floor.
Everyone turned.
Blood stained his pants.
He looked almost happy.
"You think I came here for Nora?"
Ortiz stepped closer.
"Quiet."
Marcus smiled at Grace.
"I came for the name on page fifty-three."
Grace stared.
"Who?"
Marcus looked at Amara.
"Her."
Amara went still.
Grace felt dread rise again.
Marcus continued.
"Amara Ellis wasn't the child Helen saved from Green House."
Helen whispered, "What?"
Marcus smiled.
"She was the one child Green House never placed."
Amara's face emptied.
"What does that mean?"
Marcus looked at her.
"It means Lila Ellis is not your biological mother."
Grace took Amara's hand.
Marcus delivered the last blow.
"Your mother is Helen."
After Nora came out of the basement alive, Grace sat with her on the ambulance bumper while medics checked a cut on Nora's shoulder.
Jamie slept against Ethan nearby.
Grace watched them.
"He looks like him."
Nora followed her gaze.
"Yes."
"You knew the whole time."
"Hard not to."
"Did you love Ethan?"
Nora smiled sadly.
"I still do."
Grace glanced at her.
"That sounds inconvenient."
"You have no idea."
"Does he?"
"Probably."
"Are you going back to him?"
Nora laughed.
"I have been home for eleven minutes."
"Right."
They sat in silence.
Then Grace asked, "Did Dad really know?"
Nora nodded.
"He sent me money."
"Mom knew?"
"Sometimes."
"Everyone knew except me."
"Yes."
Grace looked away.
Nora touched her arm.
"I hated that."
"Not enough to tell me."
"No."
The honesty stung.
Nora continued.
"I had to choose between hurting you with silence and risking Jamie."
Grace's eyes filled.
"I understand the choice."
"That doesn't mean you have to forgive it."
Grace looked at her sister.
"Why is everyone suddenly emotionally mature after ruining my life?"
Nora laughed so hard the medic told her to stop moving.
Grace laughed too.
May you like
For the first time, anger did not push love away.
They sat together with both.
