Chapter 3 - Maya Found The Secret Passage
Daniel did not sleep.
Anna was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital under police protection while
detectives tried to determine why she had entered the Mercer home
through a hidden passage.
Rachel sat at the kitchen table until sunrise.
Daniel sat across from her.
Between them lay a copy of the old photograph.
“Start at the beginning.”
Rachel nodded.
At nineteen, before Daniel ever knew her, Rachel became pregnant.
The father was a college boyfriend named Lucas Grant.
They planned to raise the baby together.
Then Lucas disappeared two months before Ethan was born.
“He left you?”
“I thought he did.”
Rachel’s parents were furious about the pregnancy.
Her father, Richard Hale, cared obsessively about reputation.
Her mother followed his decisions.
Rachel gave birth in a private clinic outside Richmond.
She remembered holding Ethan for less than an hour.
Then she hemorrhaged.
When she woke after emergency surgery, her father told her the baby had
developed complications and died.
Rachel never saw a body.
Never received ashes.
Never attended a funeral.
Daniel stared.
“And you believed him?”
“I was nineteen. I was sick. My mother confirmed it.”
“Where was Anna?”
“At the hospital.”
Daniel remembered the woman’s bitterness.
“What did she see?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never asked?”
“I tried. My father told me Anna had stolen money from us and
disappeared.”
Rachel’s voice cracked.
“I believed too many things my father told me.”
Daniel looked toward the staircase.
“And twelve years later Anna appears behind our daughter’s wall.”
Rachel nodded.
Neither understood how.
Then Daniel remembered something.
“Maya.”
He went upstairs.
His daughter was awake, sitting beneath her blankets.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“For feeding Anna?”
“No.”
Daniel sat beside her.
“I need you to tell me exactly how you found her.”
Maya picked at the edge of her pillow.
“Three nights ago I heard crying.”
“From behind the wall?”
“I thought it was a mouse.”
She moved the wardrobe slightly because a marble had rolled behind it.
One of the wooden wall panels was open.
Maya shone her reading light inside.
Anna was there.
“She told me not to scream.”
“What did she say?”
“That bad people were looking for her.”
“Did she tell you not to tell me?”
Maya nodded.
Daniel kept his voice calm.
“Why did you listen?”
“She knew Mommy.”
That hurt.
“What did she say about Mommy?”
“She said Mommy once saved her.”
Daniel frowned.
“Saved her from what?”
Maya shrugged.
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Did Anna ever leave the wall while you were here?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else come?”
Maya hesitated.
Daniel noticed immediately.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you hear someone?”
She nodded.
“Last night.”
“Where?”
“Inside the wall.”
Daniel felt cold.
“Anna wasn’t alone?”
Maya shook her head.
“A man came.”
“What did he say?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“Anything?”
Maya thought hard.
“He said, ‘You should’ve stayed dead.’”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“Did Anna answer?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Maya looked frightened.
“She said, ‘Tell Richard his grandson is coming home.’”
Daniel froze.
Rachel’s father, Richard Hale, was not dead.
He lived forty minutes away.
May you like
And according to Rachel, he had never once mentioned Ethan after telling
her the baby died.
