he asked quietly.
“You read financial reports. I listen to people,” Anna replied without breaking stride. “Let’s go.”
They reached the old grain elevator twenty minutes later. It was a colossal structure of rusted metal, surrounded by a broken fence. The wind whistled through holes in the walls.
“Cole, you and your men cover the perimeter,” Arthur ordered. “Anna and I will go up to the tower.”
“That’s dangerous, boss,” Cole protested.
“It’s my daughter and my witness,” Arthur said. “No one else goes up.”
They entered the darkness of the warehouse. The floor was littered with debris. They climbed a metal staircase that groaned under their weight with every step. Reaching the top landing before a closed steel door, Arthur motioned for her to stay behind him. He rapped his knuckles on the door.
“Silas!” Arthur called out. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
There was no answer, only the sound of the wind.
“Silas!” Arthur insisted. “I’m not the police. I’m here to talk about the accident 23 years ago. I’m here to talk about the baby you saved.”
From the other side of the door came the unmistakable sound of a weapon being loaded.
“Go away,” a hoarse, broken voice said from within. “Nothing to talk about. The dead are dead…”
Arthur looked at Anna. She nodded and stepped up to the door.
“Not everyone is dead, Silas,” Anna said, pressing her forehead against the cold metal. “I’m alive. I’m the baby from the leather jacket. I’m the girl you left at the children’s home.”
A long, heavy silence followed. Then, the sound of uneven, shuffling footsteps. A limp.
“You’re lying,” the voice whispered. “She died. I saw her die.”
“I have the necklace,” Anna said, pulling the locket out from under her collar. “I have my mother’s locket. Please, open the door. I just want to thank you.”
The bolt slowly slid back. The door creaked open. In the dim light, an old man with a white beard and patched clothes aimed an old shotgun at them. His hands were shaking, but when his eyes landed on Anna, on her face, on her honey-colored eyes, the weapon slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. Silas fell to his knees, sobbing like a child.
“Oh, my God…” the old man wept, covering his face with his hands. “My God, it’s you. You have her face. You have the face of the woman I couldn’t save.”
Arthur kicked the shotgun aside and then, to Anna’s surprise, knelt and helped the old man to his feet. There was no anger in Arthur’s movements, only a desperate urgency.
“Why?” Arthur asked, gripping Silas by the shoulders. “Why did you take her? Why didn’t you tell me she was alive?”
“Because they were watching,” the old man whispered, his eyes wide with terror. “The men in the black car. They caused the crash. They wanted to make sure no one got out of there alive. If I had gone to the police, they would have killed us both.”
Arthur grabbed Silas by the lapels of his dirty shirt, hauling him up with a strength born of desperation.
“What men?” Arthur demanded. “Who were they?”
Silas trembled, his eyes darting to the steel door as if the ghosts of the past might walk through at any moment.
“They didn’t have faces,” the old man stammered. “They were wearing masks, driving a black sedan. No lights, no plates. I was hiding under the bridge when I saw them. They didn’t lose control, Mr. Blackwood. They rammed you, forced you into the ravine.”
Anna covered her mouth with her hands. Arthur let go of Silas, stumbling back as if he’d been struck.
“It was murder,” Arthur whispered. “Not an accident. They were trying to kill us.”
“They got out of their car to finish the job,” Silas continued, speaking quickly, spitting out words he’d held in for twenty-three years. “But your car was on fire. They thought no one could survive that inferno. They laughed and drove away.”
“And my mother?” Anna asked, moving toward the old man. “How? How did I get out?”
Silas looked at her with a pained tenderness.
“She didn’t die on impact. Your mother was a lioness. With broken legs, her body burned, she crawled. She got out of the car before the gas tank blew.” The old man gestured toward the imaginary forest through the warehouse wall. “I found her in an old hunting cabin half a mile from the road. She was screaming, but not from pain. She was in labor.”
Arthur closed his eyes, his fists clenching until his knuckles were white.
“Oh, God…”
“Eleanor had nothing,” Silas said, tears streaming down his grimy beard. “Just a hunting knife and an old blanket. She made me help her. She told me, ‘If I can save my baby, I don’t care if I die.’ And she did it. She gave birth to you in the mud and blood while the storm raged outside.”
Anna touched the locket at her neck, feeling the weight of the story.
“She gave me this necklace,” she said.
“Did she?”
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