Chapter 10 - JANE'S NAME
David did not ask the question immediately.
That frightened Jane more than anger would have.
He simply held the photograph and waited.
Sophie sat in the next room with a state officer and cartoons turned low.
Detective Ortiz remained at the kitchen table.
"Jane."
David finally said.
"Why does Samuel Warren know your name?"
Jane looked at Ortiz.
"If I tell you, this changes everything."
Ortiz replied.
"Everything already changed."
Jane pressed her palms against the table.
"My name was not Jane Bennett when I was born."
David stared at her.
He had known Jane for twelve years.
Married her for eight.
Shared a child, a home, a life.
"What was it?"
"I don't know."
David's disbelief showed.
Jane continued quickly.
"I was adopted."
"You told me your parents died in a car accident."
"My adoptive parents did."
"Why didn't you tell me you were adopted?"
"Because I did not know until after they died."
She explained that four years earlier, while clearing her parents' home, she found a locked fireproof box.
Inside were adoption papers that did not match any state registry.
There was also a photograph of a newborn wrapped in a hospital blanket marked St. Catherine's.
The date was April 2, 1998.
Jane had been told she was born in Boston.
The blanket said New York.
David sat down slowly.
"You were part of the same network."
Jane nodded.
"I think so."
She spent two years quietly investigating.
Every trail ended at sealed records, closed clinics, dead attorneys, or shell charities connected to Mercer money.
Then Samuel Warren contacted her.
"When?"
"Nine months ago."
David stared at her.
"Before the package from Arthur's attorney."
"Yes."
"And you never told me."
Jane's eyes filled.
"I was afraid."
"Of me?"
"Of what your family might be."
That hurt because David could not call it irrational anymore.
Samuel told Jane he had delivered her as a baby.
He refused to say who her biological parents were.
He only told her Arthur Mercer had tried to undo what the medical network had done.
Samuel believed Arthur left records that could restore dozens of stolen identities.
Then he asked Jane to help find the blue book.
"So you were looking for Arthur's records before Harry ever locked you up."
David said.
"Yes."
"Did you marry me because of this?"
Jane recoiled.
"No."
The answer came so fast that David believed the emotion even if he no longer knew what else to believe.
"I learned about St. Catherine's four years after we married."
She said.
"I loved you long before I knew any of this."
David looked away.
Ortiz asked.
"Why would Samuel send Arthur's notebook through Sophie instead of you?"
Jane shook her head.
"He stopped trusting adults."
"Including you?"
"Especially me."
Jane explained that Samuel believed Elise monitored her contacts.
He thought children were less likely to be searched.
That decision had placed Sophie directly in danger.
David's anger returned.
"He used my daughter as a courier."
Jane whispered.
"Yes."
Ortiz examined the photograph of Price tied to the chair.
"This could be a rescue demand or bait."
David looked at the background.
Concrete wall.
Rusty pipe.
A painted number 14.
Jane leaned closer.
"I know that place."
"Where?"
"St. Catherine's old records building."
The hospital had closed twenty years earlier.
Most buildings were demolished.
One warehouse remained outside the town of Bellhaven.
Samuel had met Jane there once.
Ortiz immediately called a tactical unit.
David stood.
"I am going."
"No."
"Samuel knows who I am."
"That is exactly why you are not going."
Ortiz's tone ended the discussion officially.
It did not end it in David's mind.
Two hours later, Ortiz left with state police.
David remained at the residence under guard.
Jane sat across from him in silence.
Finally David asked.
"How much else have you hidden?"
"Nothing about us."
"That is not an answer."
Jane swallowed.
"I took a DNA test."
David closed his eyes.
"Of course you did."
"I never uploaded it to a public database."
"What did it show?"
Jane hesitated.
"A close family match to someone in the Mercer line."
David's eyes opened.
"How close?"
"Possibly first cousin. Possibly aunt."
"You are related to me?"
"I don't know."
Panic crossed her face.
"The data was incomplete."
David stood and walked away from the table.
The possibility was horrifying, but Jane quickly explained that the Mercer match could come from a distant branch and that David's own biological identity was still uncertain.
Nothing could be concluded without verified tests.
Still, the secret sat between them like another locked door.
At 4:07 p.m., Detective Ortiz called.
The records warehouse was empty.
No Price.
No Samuel.
Only a chair and fresh rope.
On the wall, someone had painted the rhyme in black letters.
THREE WHITE STONES.
TWO GREEN DOORS.
ONE BRASS MOON BENEATH THE FLOORS.
Beneath it was a new line.
ASK THE GIRL THE FOURTH VERSE.
David looked toward Sophie.
"There is no fourth verse."
David paced the secure residence while Ortiz studied the painted message from the warehouse.
He tried to reconstruct every version of the rhyme he remembered.
Arthur used to say it while fastening David's coat before school.
Sometimes while walking through the greenhouse.
Sometimes after nightmares.
David had never asked what it meant.
Children rarely ask adults to explain rituals that have always existed.
Jane watched him.
"Maybe Arthur never taught you the fourth verse."
"Why would he teach it to Sophie through Samuel's father?"
"Samuel is not the only one who knew the old system."
David thought of Rebecca.
Elise.
Price.
The late attorney.
A conspiracy could hide truth, but a scattered group of frightened witnesses could also preserve it in fragments.
The thought changed the shape of the mystery.
Maybe Arthur had stopped trusting documents because documents could be altered.
Maybe he trusted memory because no one could seize all memories at once.
David whispered the first three lines again.
Sophie appeared in the doorway.
Her face had gone pale.
"Yes, there is."
David stared at her.
"What?"
Sophie whispered.
"The old garden man taught it to me."
She recited the words slowly.
"When the first son finds his name, the second son must take the blame."
Jane covered her mouth.
Sophie continued.
"When the lost child comes back home, break the heart beneath the stone."
David felt a chill move through him.
"What lost child?"
May you like
Sophie looked at Jane.
"He said she was already here."
