“He left?” I asked.
“We don’t know that yet,” Grant answered.
“And Ashley?” I asked.
“She disappeared too.”
The room fell silent again. I remembered Ashley’s phone call, the urgency in her voice, and the warning she had given me only hours earlier.
“She called me,” I said.
Grant immediately looked at me. “When?”
“Tonight.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me Michael was running,” I replied. “She also mentioned my mother’s file.”
Grant frowned.
“Did she tell you who helped him gain access?”
“No.”
Richard answered before I could say anything else.
“But someone obviously did.”
Grant opened the folder and placed a photograph on my blanket. It showed Michael standing at a private airfield beside Arthur Voss.
Standing behind them was Nora Bell.
She was holding a blue notebook tightly against her chest.
My stomach tightened as Richard stared at the photograph.
“That belongs to my wife,” he said quietly. “It’s her ledger.”
Grant nodded.
“We believe you’re right.”
Richard kept staring at the picture before saying, “Then they’ve already opened it.”
At that moment, a phone began ringing inside the room. None of us moved until Grant answered the call and switched it to speaker.
For a few seconds, all we could hear was strong wind blowing across the line. Then Nora Bell’s voice finally came through.
“Emma,” she said urgently. “I don’t have much time. Listen carefully.”
I tightened my grip on the blanket.
“What is it?” I asked.
Her breathing sounded uneven.
“The baby from Vale Harbor… never disappeared.”
My heartbeat seemed to stop.
“Then what happened?”
Several long seconds passed before she answered.
“It was hidden.”
A chill spread through my entire body.
“She?” I whispered.
Another pause followed.
Then Nora finally said the words that changed everything.
“Emma… the child Elise Morgan gave birth to was your mother.”