Chapter 12 - Nurse Hart
The envelope contained one key and an address.
The address led to a self-storage facility near the river.
Mara wanted a team there first.
Unit 214 opened with the key.
Inside were three plastic bins, a rocking chair, and a sealed evidence pouch that had never belonged in a storage locker.
Celia Hart had spent nine years keeping what the hospital tried to destroy.
Photocopies of bracelet logs.
A printout showing two live births.
And a handwritten statement dated the week after Rachel died.
Celia wrote that she saw Vanessa carry Baby B from the nursery without proper transport paperwork. She confronted her. Grant arrived and claimed the child had been moved under a private placement order.
Celia called Rachel's room.
Rachel said she had approved no placement.
Then Celia was removed from the floor.
She reported it to hospital administration.
Two days later, she was fired for "documentation failures."
"Why didn't she go to police?"
Mara lifted another document.
Because someone had threatened her daughter.
There were photographs of the girl's school, house, and car.
Celia had stayed silent to keep her family safe.
A woman whispered, "Daniel Mercer?"
"Celia?"
"Don't say my name."
She had left home after seeing Vanessa's SUV on her street.
"Where are you?"
"Safe enough. Listen to me. Anne Brooks is alive too."
"You know where she is?"
"Not exactly. But I know who took her. It wasn't Vanessa."
"Who?"
"Grant. Vanessa is dangerous, but Grant is the one who moves people when paperwork stops working."
A car engine roared through the phone.
"They found me."
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Then a text arrived from her number.
An abandoned lakeside clinic owned by the Mercer charitable foundation.
