CHAPTER 16 : THE ENVELOPE WITHOUT A NAME
PART TWO
Three months after the Claire Bennett Center opened, Ethan arrived before sunrise.
The building was quiet.
Morning light had not yet reached the garden, and the ocean beyond the windows looked like a sheet of dark metal.
Ethan liked these early hours.
No reporters.
No meetings.
No questions about Margaret Hart, Vanessa or the fortune he had dismantled to build the center.
Just silence.
He entered his office and stopped.
A white envelope rested in the middle of his desk.
There was no stamp.
No address.
No name.
The security guard swore no one had entered during the night.
Ethan put on gloves before opening it.
Inside was a photograph.
Claire stood beside a hospital bed, wearing the pale green sweater Ethan remembered from the final winter of her life.
She looked thinner than usual.
Afraid.
In the bed beside her sat a girl who appeared to be twelve years old.
Her face had been partially scratched away from the photograph.
On the back, someone had written:
CLAIRE SAVED ONE CHILD.
SHE COULD NOT SAVE THE OTHERS.
Ethan stared at the words until Detective Laura Reyes arrived.
She examined the photograph beneath the office light.
“Do you recognize the room?” she asked.
“No.”
“The girl?”
“No.”
Reyes turned the photograph toward the window.
A reflection appeared in the metal rail of the hospital bed.
A woman stood near the doorway.
Only part of her face was visible.
But around her neck hung a silver symbol shaped like a broken circle.
Reyes’s expression changed.
She had seen that symbol once before.
It appeared in one of Margaret Hart’s confiscated financial ledgers beside payments labeled only as Harbor.
“What was Harbor?” Ethan asked.
“We never found out.”
At that moment, Sophie appeared in the doorway wearing her pajamas beneath Ethan’s oversized jacket.
The babysitter stood behind her, apologizing.
Sophie looked at the photograph.
Her face became still.
“Where did you get that?”
Ethan immediately covered it.
“You’ve seen this girl?”
Sophie shook her head.
Then she pointed toward the scratched face.
“No.”
Her finger moved toward the woman reflected in the bedrail.
“I’ve seen her.”
Reyes knelt beside her.
“Where?”
Sophie looked toward the center’s dark hallway.
“She was here yesterday.”
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Before Ethan could speak, the building’s fire alarm suddenly activated.
As staff members rushed into the hallway, every security camera in the center went black.
