Chapter 8 - The Son Who Never Had a Grave
Darlene had never spoken publicly about the child she lost.
The birth had been premature, followed by an emergency transfer and a room full of doctors who would not meet her eyes.
Thomas told her their son had died and arranged everything.
There was no grave because, he said, the baby had been cremated.
For decades she accepted his account.
Now she sat across from Blake and told him the truth in a voice stripped of authority.
“I never saw his body.”
Blake looked at the photograph of Abigail.
“We need the birth records.”
Naomi requested them through proper channels.
What arrived was a series of administrative fragments.
A male infant had been transferred under a temporary identifier.
The receiving hospital had recorded his condition as critical but stable.
The death certificate Darlene possessed carried a different identifier.
Her son might have survived.
The possibility was almost harder to bear than grief.
“Thomas told me I had failed him,” she said.
“Failed who?”
“Our baby.”
Blake shook his head.
“You didn't fail your child.”
Darlene stared at him, surprised that the man she once threatened could offer her something she had never been permitted to believe.
A records specialist traced the transfer to a pediatric facility operated decades later by a predecessor of Northstar Biologics.
The institution had closed.
Its archives were held by an estate administrator named Leonard Cross.
Naomi recognized the name from Oakridge's trust documents.
Cross had been Thomas's private lawyer.
Blake drove with the detective to Cross's office.
The receptionist said her employer had retired.
His desk was bare.
His computer drives had been removed.
But an empty picture frame left a rectangle of clean wood amid dust.
Someone had packed in haste.
They found Cross at a rural house outside the city.
He refused to open his door until the detective showed identification.
Then he looked past them into the driveway.
“Is she here?”
“Who?” Blake asked.
“Darlene.”
The detective said she wasn't.
Cross seemed relieved and ashamed at once.
“Tell her I helped Thomas once,” he said.
“I thought the child would be safe.”
“What child?”
Cross's eyes filled.
“The boy they gave a new name.”
He handed over an old adoption ledger.
The entry for Darlene's son had been partially obscured.
But the final page contained a familiar photograph of a young Army recruit.
Blake recognized his own face.
Under the picture someone had written: SUBJECT B-17, LEGAL IDENTITY CONFIRMED.
He looked at the detective.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Cross whispered the answer.
May you like
“Everything.”
