The Records Beneath St. Catherine’s
Chapter 03 - The Records Beneath St. Catherine’s
Police traced Vane’s sedan to the abandoned east wing of St. Catherine’s Hospital, scheduled for demolition the following morning. Grace, Noah, and Eleanor followed Detective Maya Torres to the site, refusing to wait at the hotel while the only witness to Rose’s disappearance remained in danger.
They found Lydia locked inside the former records office. She was frightened but unharmed. Vane had taken the maternity log and gone into the basement archives, where old paper files were stored beyond the reach of modern databases.
Lydia finally told the full story.
During the blackout twenty-six years earlier, Vane ran an illegal adoption scheme for wealthy couples who could not pass agency screenings. He falsified deaths, altered birth certificates, and paid desperate employees to move newborns through a service entrance. Lydia had been young, indebted, and terrified of losing her nursing license.
She was ordered to carry Eleanor’s baby to a waiting car.
But when Lydia saw Eleanor searching the dark hallways and screaming her daughter’s name, she panicked. Instead of delivering Rose to Vane’s chosen buyers, she took the child to her sister and brother-in-law—the Parkers—who had recently lost a baby of their own. Lydia told them the mother had died and spent the next twenty-six years watching Grace from nearby, too ashamed to confess.
“I stole your life from your mother,” Lydia said. “Then I was too afraid to give it back.”
Grace’s anger was immediate, but so was the pain in Lydia’s face. “You should have told us.”
“I know.”
A crash echoed beneath them.
In the basement, Vane was feeding files into an industrial furnace used for document disposal. Detective Torres ordered him to stop. He claimed the records were hospital property and accused Lydia of inventing the story for money.
Eleanor saw a leather ledger near the flames and rushed toward it. Vane shoved a cart between them, knocking burning papers across the floor. Sprinklers activated, filling the basement with water and smoke.
Noah pulled Eleanor back while Grace grabbed the ledger before it slid into the furnace.
Inside were dates, infant identification numbers, payments, and false death reports. Rose Mercer’s entry listed her transfer to “Parker, G. and Helen” with Vane’s initials beside it.
But the final pages revealed something even larger.
Rose had not been the only missing child.
More than forty infants had been moved through the same scheme, and several families were still searching for them.
Vane tried to escape through the loading tunnel, but police stopped him at the gate.
As officers led him away, he looked at Grace and smiled coldly.
“You still have no proof that Eleanor is your mother.”
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Grace opened the ledger again.
Taped inside the back cover was a blood sample card labeled BABY MERCER.
