Chapter 9 - The Second Bottle.
On the full recording, Jonathan leaned forward after saying the sentence.
“But I want a licensed specialist,” he continued.
“No isolation rooms.”
“No sedating him just because he's upset.”
“And I want to meet the doctor myself before anything changes.”
Maya stared at the screen.
The edited version Noah had been shown ended before any of those words.
Celeste had taken a sentence of permission and turned it into proof of abandonment.
Detective Ortiz ordered the video copied immediately.
“Now we know the child was being manipulated.”
Maya looked at the folders on the desk.
“And those reports were meant to make everyone else believe him less.”
They began going through the room systematically.
One file contained incident reports describing violent behavior Maya had never witnessed.
Another claimed Noah had repeatedly threatened staff members who had left the Hawthorne household months earlier.
A third report described a kitchen incident on a date when Noah had been visiting his grandparents in Maine.
The lies were detailed enough to look official.
That made them more frightening.
A radio call interrupted the search.
One of the estate groundskeepers had found Marcus Reed's abandoned shoes near the greenhouse.
There was no sign of Marcus.
Ortiz's face tightened.
“Why leave his shoes?” Maya asked.
“To make us think he ran through the grounds.”
“You don't believe he did?”
“I believe someone wants us looking outside.”
Maya thought about the old mansion.
The Hawthorne estate had passages built during Prohibition, service stairs that no longer appeared on modern plans, and storage rooms hidden behind paneling.
“If he knows the house,” she said, “he may still be inside.”
Ortiz turned to her.
“Who knows it better than the staff?”
Maya did not like the answer.
“Marcus.”
A shout came from the floor below.
Officers rushed toward the kitchen.
Maya followed despite Ortiz telling her to stay back.
In the butler's pantry, a young officer stood beside an open flour bin.
Inside the flour was a blue glass bottle.
The black plastic cap was missing.
Maya immediately recognized its size.
It matched the cap found outside Noah's hidden room.
Ortiz lifted the bottle with gloved hands.
There was still a small amount of cloudy liquid inside.
A label had been scraped away.
Maya felt sick.
“That is what he meant.”
Ortiz sealed it into evidence.
“Maybe.”
A kitchen worker named Rosa stepped forward nervously.
“I saw Mr. Reed here after the police came.”
“When?”
“Maybe ten minutes after the boy was taken away.”
“What was he doing?”
“He said he was checking doors.”
“Did he have anything in his hands?”
Rosa thought carefully.
“A towel.”
Then her eyes widened.
“No.”
“What?”
“A bottle wrapped in a towel.”
Ortiz looked toward the back stairs.
“Which way did he go?”
Rosa pointed toward the old wine cellar.
Officers moved immediately.
Maya remained beside the kitchen doorway.
Then she heard a sound beneath the floor.
Three quick knocks.
Two slow ones.
Three quick knocks.
Her entire body went cold.
May you like
Noah was at the hospital.
Someone else knew Evelyn's signal.
