Chapter 4 - My Mother’s Hidden Name
The man refused to speak after that.
Gabriel’s guards took him downstairs.
I stood in the dining room, staring at the empty doorway.
“Bait?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Did your mother ever teach you anything unusual?”
“Like what?”
“Self-defense. Codes. Languages. How to recognize surveillance.”
I laughed nervously.
“No.”
He looked disappointed.
I added, “Actually…”
“What?”
“When I was twelve, she taught me how to notice when the same car appeared twice.”
Gabriel went still.
“She called it a safety game.”
“Anything else?”
“She told me never to tell strangers where I lived.”
“Anything else?”
“She taught me to burn old letters.”
He stared at me.
“Your mother wasn’t ordinary.”
“I know that now.”
We searched the house for anything connected to Claire Bennett.
Gabriel found an old notebook hidden beneath a floorboard in the nursery.
The first page contained a name.
Not Claire Bennett.
Eleanor Cross.
I stared at it.
“Who is Eleanor Cross?”
Gabriel looked at Leo.
Neither answered.
Finally Gabriel said, “A woman who disappeared twenty years ago.”
“How do you know her?”
“She worked for my father.”
“As what?”
“Accountant.”
I flipped through the notebook.
Numbers.
Company names.
Shipping routes.
Political donations.
Then one line appeared again and again.
PROJECT DAWN.
“What is Project Dawn?”
Gabriel took the notebook.
“I don’t know.”
I pointed to another page.
“You do.”
He stared at the handwriting.
“Because my father used to mention it.”
“What was it?”
“An operation.”
“Doing what?”
“I never knew.”
We discovered another clue in the old desk.
A key.
Stamped with the number 17.
Gabriel recognized it.
“There was an underground archive beneath Hayes Shipping.”
“We’re going there.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“So is everything else.”
He looked at me for several seconds.
Then he gave a short nod.
We left before sunrise.
Hayes Shipping occupied a massive warehouse near the docks.
The building looked abandoned.
It wasn’t.
Security cameras tracked us.
Gabriel used the key to open a hidden steel door beneath the loading bay.
A staircase descended into darkness.
The air smelled damp.
At the bottom, we found a corridor filled with locked filing cabinets.
Room 17 stood at the end.
Gabriel unlocked it.
Inside were boxes.
Old photographs.
Bank records.
Medical files.
And a red binder.
I opened it.
My breath caught.
Photographs of Rosa.
My mother.
Evelyn Hayes.
Richard Hayes.
And a little girl.
The same girl from the nursery.
On the first page was her name.
Amelia Hayes.
I looked at Gabriel.
“Amelia.”
He nodded.
“My sister.”
A medical photograph followed.
The girl had a tiny scar near her left shoulder.
I remembered a scar on myself.
I touched my shoulder.
Gabriel noticed.
“Norah?”
“I have a scar there.”
He looked shocked.
“What?”
“It’s been there since I was little.”
Leo stepped closer.
“Maybe we should get a DNA test.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m Norah Bennett.”
Gabriel looked at the files.
“Names can change.”
“People can’t.”
He looked at me.
“Maybe they can.”
I opened another file.
An old hospital record.
Patient: Female child, approximately four years old.
Date: Twenty years ago.
Status: unidentified survivor.
Location: St. Vincent Hospital.
Guardian: Eleanor Cross.
The patient's injuries included smoke inhalation and a fractured shoulder.
I read the final line.
“Memory loss.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Eleanor Cross.”
My mother’s hidden name.
Gabriel grabbed the file.
“St. Vincent.”
“That hospital is gone.”
“Records may still exist.”
We rushed back upstairs.
Then the lights went out.
A gunshot exploded through the corridor.
Leo shoved me behind a cabinet.
Gabriel fired back.
The room filled with smoke.
Someone ran.
We chased him through the warehouse.
Gabriel tackled the man against a steel door.
A mask fell away.
Paulie.
I froze.
Gabriel looked at his underboss in disbelief.
“You.”
Paulie smiled.
“I told you not to trust anyone.”
Gabriel raised his gun.
Paulie laughed.
“You think I poisoned myself?”
“What did you do?”
“I survived.”
“Why?”
“Because someone had to force you to remember.”
Gabriel looked ready to pull the trigger.
Paulie continued.
“Your father wasn’t killed for the reasons you were told.”
“Who killed him?”
Paulie looked at me.
“Ask Eleanor.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel’s face twisted.
“My mother is dead.”
Paulie shook his head.
“No.”
He pointed at me.
“Your mother was never Claire Bennett.”
I stepped backward.
“Stop.”
“Her real name is Eleanor Cross.”
My world tilted.
Gabriel looked at me.
Paulie smiled.
“She saved Amelia that night.”
I whispered, “Who is Amelia?”
Paulie answered.
“You.”
Silence.
The gun in Gabriel’s hand lowered.
I shook my head.
“No.”
Paulie said softly, “You are Gabriel Hayes’s sister.”
I couldn't hear anything after that.
Not the rain.
Not Leo.
Not Gabriel.
Only one sentence repeated in my mind.
You are Amelia Hayes.
Then memories surfaced.
A burning hallway.
A woman's hand around mine.
Rosa screaming.
A little boy crying.
My father on the floor.
My mother shouting.
And a voice saying:
“Run, Birdie. Don’t look back.”
I collapsed.
Gabriel caught me.
“Amelia?”
The name sounded foreign.
Yet somehow familiar.
I looked up at him.
And for the first time, I recognized his eyes.
Not as the eyes of a feared man.
May you like
Not as the eyes of a stranger.
As my brother’s.
