Chapter 11 - THE GIRL WHO DISAPPEARED
Her name was After Ben's sudden heart attack, Mia went to a temporary guardian approved through a family-transition service.
Hearth.
Then paperwork claimed Mia had been transferred to a therapeutic school out of state.
The school denied ever receiving her.
The guardian disappeared.
Ramirez pulled the archived missing-child file.
The photograph made my stomach drop.
Mia was the girl from the camera footage.
The child we had been trying to identify since the first night.
She had not simply been another experiment.
She was missing.
Vanessa broke when Ramirez showed her the picture.
"I thought she was with a family."
"What family?"
"Owen said an adoption placement."
"Without court approval?"
Vanessa cried harder.
"I didn't know then."
"When did you know?"
"After Michael Bennett."
Ramirez stared at her.
"You stayed anyway."
"I was afraid."
Michael stood so abruptly his chair fell backward.
"You were afraid? My daughter still sleeps with the light on because of you."
I stepped between them.
Not for Vanessa.
For Michael.
Because I understood the feeling of wanting pain to have a face.
Ramirez asked, "Where did Mia go?"
Vanessa whispered, "Owen called it Haven."
"Hearth House?"
"No. Haven was different."
A server recovered from Caleb's warehouse contained an encrypted directory.
HAVEN.
Inside were invoices for foster homes, transportation, therapy, and identity documents.
Some legitimate.
Some not.
One payment had been made every month for two years to a woman in Maine.
Judith Crane.
Police contacted Maine authorities.
Judith's address belonged to a farmhouse near the Canadian border.
An officer knocked.
A woman answered.
Then a little girl appeared behind her.
Older now.
Eight years old.
Same eyes.
Mia Holloway was alive.
I closed my eyes.
May you like
Because if Mia had been hidden for two years, Owen Cross had built something far larger than a fraudulent therapy program.
He had built a system capable of making a child disappear.
