The archive’s public request portal had been live for six days when Rebecca called.
Not because anything had gone wrong.
That alone made the call unusual.
Claire was cutting strawberries for Luca.
I was trying to repair the hinge on a cabinet door with the confidence of someone who had not yet accepted that the hinge was stronger than he was.
My phone buzzed.
Rebecca.
Claire looked at it.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
I answered.
“Hello?”
Rebecca did not waste time.
“We have a request.”
I waited.
“That is what the portal is for.”
“This one is different.”
Claire put down the knife.
Of course she did.
Rebecca continued.
“The requester identified a Carter record.”
My stomach tightened.
“What name?”
“Not Carter.”
“Then?”
“Rachel Price.”
Claire and I looked at each other.
Price.
One of the founder lines.
Samuel.
Caroline.
Eleanor.
But Rachel meant nothing to us.
“How old?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Location?”
“Arizona.”
“Why is that different?”
Rebecca paused.
“She uploaded a photograph.”
Claire moved closer.
“What photograph?”
“Michael.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Your father.”
“From where?”
“That is the problem.”
Rebecca sent it.
The image loaded slowly.
Old.
Faded.
A younger Michael stood beside a woman I did not recognize.
Between them was a little girl.
Maybe six.
Michael had one hand on the girl’s shoulder.
The woman beside him wore dark glasses and a baseball cap.
The child stared directly at the camera.
No smile.
No fear.
Just suspicion.
Claire enlarged the picture.
“When?”
Rebecca said:
“Metadata suggests 2004.”
A year before Michael found Adam at Mercer.
Before the fishing trip.
Before Blackwood Lane.
“Who is the girl?”
“The requester.”
I stared at Rachel Price.
Twenty-seven now.
About six then.
The timing fit.
Claire asked:
“Who is the woman?”
“Rachel says her mother.”
“Name?”
“Caroline Price.”
The room went silent.
Claire whispered:
“No.”
Rebecca continued.
“Rachel claims Caroline was her biological mother.”
I stood.
“Caroline had a daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Was Rachel transferred?”
“Unknown.”
“Did Samuel know?”
“I asked.”
“And?”
“He says no.”
Claire frowned.
“Caroline hid her own child.”
“Apparently.”
Rebecca continued.
“Rachel’s adoption file lists different parents entirely.”
“Who?”
“David and Helen Price.”
I almost laughed.
“Same surname?”
“Yes.”
“Relatives?”
“Rachel says she was told they were distant cousins.”
“True?”
“We do not know.”
Claire looked at the photograph again.
Michael’s hand remained on the child’s shoulder.
Not gripping.
Protective.
Familiar.
Too familiar for a stranger.
“Why was Dad with her?”
Rebecca answered:
“That is what Rachel wants to know.”
The request included a note.
Rebecca read it.
*My mother told me Michael Carter was the only person who ever tried to take me away from Mercer. I do not know whether that was true. I want my record before anyone tells me what I am supposed to believe.**
Claire sat down.
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yes.”
“Does Rachel know Grace?”
“No indication.”
“Noah?”
“No.”
“Caroline is in custody.”
“Yes.”
“Has anyone asked her?”
“Her attorney says she will not discuss Rachel.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Rebecca had already assigned an independent archive advocate.
Good.
No founder family would receive Rachel’s record before she did.
Not Samuel.
Not us.
Not Grace.
Rachel chose privacy first.
Then, three days later, she contacted Rebecca again.
She wanted to speak with Michael’s family.
Not because she thought we knew the truth.
Because she suspected we did not.
That seemed to be how people trusted us now.
By assuming we were also confused.
Grace volunteered to join.
“No,” Claire said immediately.
Grace looked offended.
“Why?”
“Because you volunteer for every hidden-family meeting.”
“Experience.”
“That is not a credential.”
“It should be.”
Rachel ultimately requested Claire and me.
No others.
We joined a video call.
Rachel Price looked nothing like Caroline.
At least not at first glance.
Dark curls.
Warm brown skin.
Sharp eyebrows.
Then she frowned at Rebecca over something procedural.
There.
Caroline’s expression.
Exactly.
Rachel noticed us noticing.
“Don’t.”
Claire blinked.
“What?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
“The one people make when they see her in me.”
Claire leaned back.
“Sorry.”
“Everyone does it.”
“Still sorry.”
Rachel nodded.
Accepted.
Not forgiven.
Just accepted.
She held up the old photograph.
“Do you know this day?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“You recognize Michael?”
“Yes.”
“What was he like in 2004?”
I thought.
“Restless.”
Rachel frowned.
“That sounds vague.”
“He was working too much. He checked windows constantly. He stopped keeping his phone in the house at night.”
Claire looked at me.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t think about it until now.”
Rachel said:
“My mother told me Michael was paranoid.”
“She wasn’t wrong.”
“She also said he was dangerous.”
Claire asked:
“To her?”
Rachel’s expression changed.
“She said he tried to kidnap me.”
I stared.
“What?”
“That picture was taken the day she says he tried.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Rachel, do you want to discuss this now?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“Did Michael ever kidnap anyone?”
The question should have been easy.
It wasn’t.
“Not that I know.”
“That isn’t no.”
“No.”
Rachel stared.
I continued.
“He hid things. He helped move people through Haven. He participated in systems he later opposed. I can’t promise he never crossed that line.”
Claire looked at me.
The truth sounded worse than defending him.
That was probably why it mattered.
Rachel nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
Then she opened her archive file.
Not all of it.
Only pages she chose.
Birth certificate.
Mother: Caroline Price.
Father: blank.
Six weeks later, amended.
Mother: Helen Price.
Father: David Price.
Legal adoption order attached.
Private.
Sealed.
Caroline signed a consent under a different name.
Claire whispered:
“She gave you away.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
She turned another page.
Custodial arrangement.
TEMPORARY CONTINUITY PLACEMENT.
No date ending it.
Mercer language.
She had not been adopted in the ordinary sense.
She had been placed.
Like Adam.
Like Laura.
Like Samuel.
Like too many others.
Rachel continued.
“My parents—David and Helen—raised me.”
“Were they good to you?”
“Yes.”
“Are they alive?”
“Helen died three years ago. David is alive.”
“Does he know you are doing this?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know Caroline was your biological mother?”
“Yes.”
“Always?”
Rachel’s face tightened.
“He says yes.”
Claire asked:
“And you?”
“I learned at seventeen.”
“How?”
“Caroline told me.”
That surprised all of us.
Rachel laughed without humor.
“She showed up at school.”
Of course she did.
Claire leaned forward.
“What did she say?”
“That David and Helen were not my real parents.”
Rachel’s voice hardened.
“I hated her immediately.”
Claire almost smiled.
“Reasonable.”
“She said I belonged to the Price line.”
Claire’s smile disappeared.
“She used those words?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“Told her to leave.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
Rachel looked toward Rebecca.
“She kept contacting me.”
“How often?”
“Every few months.”
“For what?”
“To explain Mercer.”
“Did she?”
“Pieces.”
“What pieces?”
“Enough to make it sound like my parents had stolen me from her.”
I stared.
“And the truth?”
Rachel looked at the archive.
“She signed the transfer.”
No one spoke.
“She knew they were taking me.”
Claire said quietly:
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel shrugged.
“Still working on whether I care.”
Fair.
Then she returned to Michael.
“When I was six, Michael showed up at our house.”
“Why?”
“My father says Michael believed Caroline planned to take me back.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“Take you back into Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She needed a successor.”
Samuel’s line.
Caroline had no valid authority.
But she had a biological daughter.
A daughter could support a claim.
Rebecca said:
“That explains why Caroline concealed Rachel from Samuel.”
Claire looked at me.
Rachel continued.
“Michael told David to take me and disappear.”
I frowned.
“That sounds like him.”
“David refused.”
“Why?”
“He thought Michael was insane.”
Also fair.
“Then Caroline arrived.”
Rachel held up the photograph.
“That’s when this was taken.”
“Who took it?”
“David.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought if something happened, he wanted proof Michael had been there.”
I studied the image again.
The woman beside Michael.
Caroline.
Not Rachel’s mother as I had first assumed.
Her face was partly hidden.
But now that I knew, I could see her.
Rachel continued.
“My father says Caroline told Michael that I was hers and he had no authority.”
Claire whispered:
“She used the same language with Luca.”
Rachel looked at her.
“What?”
Claire explained.
Not everything.
Enough.
Caroline’s attempted sample collection.
The custodial claim.
Rachel closed her eyes.
“She never changed.”
“No.”
Rachel looked at me.
“What did Michael do?”
“My father says he tried to convince Caroline to let me stay.”
“That isn’t kidnapping.”
“No.”
“But then?”
Rachel flipped to a handwritten statement.
David Price.
Dated 2018.
Michael returned the next night.
Alone.
He gave David money.
New identification documents.
A phone number for Elena.
Then told him:
“If Caroline comes back, you leave.”
Rachel stared at us.
“My father says Michael helped them disappear for four years.”
Claire whispered:
“Haven.”
“Yes.”
“Did Elena place you?”
“No. We stayed together.”
That mattered.
Michael had not removed Rachel from her parents.
He had helped the family leave.
Rachel looked at the photograph.
“Then why did Caroline tell me he kidnapped me?”
Rebecca answered carefully.
“Because from her perspective, he interfered with her claim.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened.
“Her claim.”
“Yes.”
“I was six.”
“I know.”
“She signed me away.”
“Yes.”
Rachel pushed her chair back.
For several seconds she disappeared from frame.
When she returned, she had a second photograph.
David.
Helen.
Rachel around ten.
At a beach.
Everyone smiling.
“These are my parents.”
Claire said:
“Yes.”
Rachel studied her.
“No hesitation.”
“No.”
“Even though Caroline gave birth to me.”
“Yes.”
Rachel looked toward me.
“You?”
“Yes.”
She exhaled.
“Good.”
Then she asked the question Rebecca had been expecting.
“My father.”
Biological father.
“Do you know who he was?”
Rebecca looked at her.
“Your archive file contains a sealed paternal notation.”
Rachel went still.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You asked that the record remain sealed until today.”
Rachel remembered.
“Right.”
“You can open it now.”
Rachel looked toward the archive advocate off-screen.
Then nodded.
The file opened.
One name.
Not Samuel.
Not Charles.
Not Peter.
Not Michael.
Victor Hale.
Rachel stopped breathing.
The Blackwood Lane operator.
The investigator who worked for Raymond Bennett.
The man who had helped confine Valeria.
Claire whispered:
“No.”
Rachel stared.
“Victor.”
Rebecca confirmed quietly.
“Yes.”
Rachel looked at the camera.
“He’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“In custody?”
“Pending sentencing.”
Rachel pushed away from the table again.
This time she did not return immediately.
When she did, she was crying.
Angrily.
“I don’t want him.”
Claire said:
“You don’t have to.”
“I know biology doesn’t mean—”
“You don’t have to finish.”
Rachel stared at her.
Claire continued.
“You do not owe him contact because a file says father.”
Rachel wiped her face.
“Did Caroline love him?”
We did not know.
Rebecca did.
“Evidence suggests they had a relationship for several years.”
Rachel looked sick.
“Did he know about me?”
Rebecca paused.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He signed a private transfer acknowledgment.”
Rachel laughed.
It sounded almost like choking.
“So both biological parents signed me away.”
Nobody corrected her.
Then Rebecca noticed something at the bottom of the page.
A handwritten notation.
M.C. OBJECTED.
Rachel stared.
“What does that mean?”
Michael Carter objected.
Not parent.
Not custodian.
Not relative.
Just a man who saw a six-year-old being pulled back toward Mercer and said no.
Rachel looked at me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She cried harder.
“That is a stupid reason to cry.”
“No,” Claire said.
Rachel covered her face.
“I spent twenty years believing he tried to steal me.”
Claire waited.
Rachel lowered her hands.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Claire answered:
“Nothing tonight.”
Rachel looked at her.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have advice?”
“No.”
Rachel laughed through tears.
“Grace said you would say that.”
Claire blinked.
“You talked to Grace?”
Rachel froze.
Then smiled faintly.
“She messaged me through the archive advocate yesterday.”
Claire stared.
“What did she say?”
Rachel looked almost embarrassed.
“She said, ‘If anyone tells you what this means before you decide, hang up.’”
I laughed.
“That sounds like her.”
Rachel nodded.
Then she held Michael’s photograph again.
“Can I keep thinking he was complicated?”
I looked at Dad.
Young.
Afraid.
Standing between Caroline and a child who was not his.
“Yes.”
Rachel nodded.
“Good.”
Before the call ended, she asked one more thing.
“Do you know what happened to Victor’s Blackwood Lane records?”
Rebecca answered:
“They are still being reviewed.”
“Does my name appear?”
“We do not know yet.”
“Will you tell me if it does?”
“Only you.”
Rachel nodded.
“Good.”
Three days later, Blackwood Lane’s final payroll ledger produced a file.
Not Rachel’s.
No.
Another name.
Noah Merritt.
Jonathan called immediately.
“My Noah?”
Rebecca said:
“The date is before he was born.”
Silence.
Then Jonathan asked:
“What kind of file?”
Rebecca looked at the archive number.
“Prenatal designation.”
Claire went still.
Noah’s biological record.
The file contained a photograph.
Not Noah.
A young woman.
Pregnant.
Handwritten beneath:
MERRITT CARRIER — DO NOT CONTACT FAMILY.
Claire stared.
“That isn’t Monica Reyes.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Grace joined.
“Then who?”
Rebecca enlarged the face.
No one recognized her.
Except Jonathan.
He went completely still.
Elise saw him.
“Jonathan?”
He could barely speak.
“I know her.”
Everyone stopped.
“Who?”
Jonathan stared at the photograph.
“My sister.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 34: Jonathan Learned His Own Sister Had Carried Noah Before He and Elise Adopted Him, and the Truth About Caroline’s “Reserve” Program Turned the Merritts From Bystanders Into Another Family Mercer Had Manipulated
The Night Before My Heart Surgery, My Husband Sent a Message That Changed What I Was Fighting to Survive For
Part 33 of 36
