Chapter 3 - The Road to WestmoreDetective Ellis did not allow Alexander to ride alone.
Two patrol cars led the way toward Westmore House. An ambulance followed behind. I rode in the third vehicle with Sophie asleep against my shoulder, because Detective Ellis had asked me to identify anything connected to the hotel footage.
Alexander sat in the front passenger seat of the detective’s car, silent as the dark road unrolled before us.
Westmore House stood thirty miles outside the city, hidden behind iron gates and black pines. It had once belonged to Alexander’s grandmother, a woman famous for hosting senators, judges, and men who never appeared in photographs.
The gates were locked.
Alexander entered a code.
Nothing happened.
His jaw tightened.
“They changed it.”
Detective Ellis ordered the officers forward. A battering ram hit the gate twice before the lock broke.
The house waited beyond the driveway like something ashamed of itself.
No lights burned in the front windows.
But in the east wing, behind blue curtains, one lamp glowed.
Dr. Mercer had been brought in handcuffs. He stared at that light and shook so badly one officer had to hold him upright.
“Who else is inside?” Detective Ellis asked.
“A nurse,” he whispered. “Maybe two guards. Cynthia hired them. I don’t know their names.”
Alexander grabbed him by the collar.
“My wife has been here for three years?”
Dr. Mercer cried harder. “No. Not all of it. She was moved. Clinics. Private houses. She tried to escape twice.”
Alexander’s face twisted.
“And you helped them.”
“They had my daughter.”
Alexander released him like he was filth.
Police entered through the front and rear. I stayed outside with Sophie in the ambulance, but I could see the flashlights moving behind the windows.
Minutes passed.
Then someone shouted.
The sound ripped through the night.
“Medical team! Upstairs now!”
Alexander ran before anyone could stop him.
I followed the paramedics to the entrance, stopping just inside the doorway.
The house smelled of antiseptic, old wood, and secrets.
From upstairs came a woman’s weak scream.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“Alexander?”
He froze on the landing.
Then he disappeared into the blue hallway.
Detective Ellis later told me he found Eleanor Whitmore in a locked bedroom with medical equipment beside her bed, pale as moonlight, wrists bruised, one hand curled protectively over her swollen stomach.
She was alive.
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And when Alexander fell to his knees beside her, she touched his face with trembling fingers and whispered the sentence that destroyed everything he thought he knew.
“They told me you gave me to them.”
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