The Archive Beneath Maternity
Chapter 05 - The Archive Beneath Maternity
The founder’s key opened an elevator hidden behind the original maternity chapel.
Samuel, Grace, Detective Ortiz, and a hospital systems engineer descended to a floor absent from modern blueprints.
The archive beneath Saint Alden contained magnetic tapes, paper ledgers, original birth records, and recordings made before digital systems could be remotely altered.
Elise had designed it.
The first cabinet carried her name.
Inside were Grace’s original birth certificate, infant footprints, and a photograph of Elise holding her beside a hospital window.
Father: Michael Bennett.
Mother: Elise Bennett.
Child: Grace Elise Bennett.
Grace recognized the blanket from childhood photographs.
Her mother had preserved one corner all those years.
Another file documented the fire.
Security footage showed Elise leaving the maternity wing with baby Grace ten minutes before smoke appeared.
Richard Sloan met her near the ambulance garage.
He promised safe transport to federal investigators.
Instead, his driver took her to a private clinic.
Elise escaped three days later and disappeared under the name Ellen Bennett.
She raised Grace quietly while gathering evidence.
When Grace was eleven, Elise was admitted to a hospital after a car collision.
Richard’s company controlled that hospital too.
The official record said Ellen died.
The archive showed that she was transferred under sedation to Green River Recovery Center.
No death occurred.
Grace gripped the table.
Her mother might still be alive.
Samuel looked twenty-eight years older in one moment.
He had spent nearly three decades mourning a sister who may have been imprisoned inside the network they founded together.
The final archive entry was recent.
Patient E-17 transferred six weeks earlier by order of Victoria Sloan.
Destination:
HALE MATERNITY RESEARCH LODGE.
May you like
Daniel’s company owned the lodge.
He had never been told anyone lived there.
