CHAPTER 19 : Emily Vale
Daniel attempted to trace the transmission.
The signal disappeared before he could locate it.
For three hours, no one heard from the girl again.
Then the center’s emergency phone rang.
Rachel answered.
A bus driver had found a teenage girl walking barefoot along the mountain highway.
She carried no identification.
She had asked to be taken to Blackwood Mountain Lodge.
Daniel met the bus at the lower gate after the road partially reopened.
The girl was sixteen, thin, and pale from the cold.
Dark hair hung around her face.
She wore a man’s oversized coat over a white hospital gown.
When she entered the center, she ignored every adult.
Her eyes went directly to Sophie.
“You look like her,” the girl said.
Sophie stepped closer.
“Like who?”
“Laura.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“How did you know Laura?”
The girl looked at him.
“You’re Ethan.”
It was not a question.
Rachel offered her a blanket.
“What should we call you?”
“Emily.”
“Is that your real name?”
Emily hesitated.
“It’s the only one I remember.”
Daniel searched the coat she had been wearing.
Inside one pocket, he found a silver pendant broken in half.
Ethan recognized it.
Laura had worn the pendant during the first years of their marriage.
She told him it had belonged to her mother.
After Laura’s death, it had never been recovered from the vehicle.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
Emily touched the pendant protectively.
“Laura gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Before the fire.”
“What fire?”
“The one at Northstar House.”
Olivia opened the recovered file.
“There’s no record of a fire.”
“There wouldn’t be,” Emily replied. “They erased the address.”
She sat near the fireplace with Sophie and the others gathered around her.
Her memories came in fragments.
She remembered white rooms.
Daily photographs.
Doctors who taught children to answer to new names.
Families who arrived without knowing the children had been stolen through manipulated guardianship cases.
“Were the children adopted?” Rachel asked.
“Some.”
“What happened to the others?”
Emily stared into the fire.
“They became proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That records mattered more than people.”
She explained that Northstar created new identities for children connected to large estates, lawsuits, political families, and protected trusts.
Once the original child disappeared, a replacement identity could be used to redirect money or control inheritance rights.
“Victor ran it?” Ethan asked.
“Victor handled money. Vivian chose families. Cassandra was being trained to manage the next generation.”
“Who was above them?”
Emily looked toward the windows.
“We called him the Guardian.”
Noah suddenly dropped his backpack.
Emily turned toward him.
They stared at each other.
“You,” Noah whispered.
Emily stood.
“You were in Room Twelve.”
Marissa looked between them.
“You know my son?”
Emily’s face became frightened.
“Noah wasn’t taken to the house because of Elsie’s surgery.”
“What do you mean?”
“They wanted him.”
Noah backed away.
Emily followed slowly.
“What did they ask you to memorize?”
“Nothing.”
“What did they put inside your backpack?”
Noah held it tighter.
“Nothing.”
Daniel moved toward him.
“Noah, we need to see it.”
The boy began crying.
“I promised I wouldn’t open it.”
“Promised who?”
“The man in the mask.”
Marissa reached for him.
Noah pulled away.
“If I open it, he said Elsie will die.”
Emily took the backpack gently.
She found a line of hidden stitching along the bottom.
Daniel cut it open.
A small black device fell onto the floor.
Numbers flashed across its screen.
00:04:58.
A countdown.
Emily’s face went white.
“That isn’t a tracker.”
Daniel grabbed the device.
“What is it?”
Emily looked toward the center’s heating vents.
May you like
“It controls the gas system.”
Four minutes remained.
