Chapter 8 - Someone Is Watching
Nia called the police.
Not because she believed the photograph proved an immediate physical threat, but because establishing a record mattered.
Two Atlanta-area officers arrived at the Mitchell home forty minutes later.
They photographed Jordan’s phone, took a report and advised the family to preserve every message.
No one promised protection.
No one dramatically stationed agents outside.
Reality was less cinematic than fear.
It was also more unsettling.
The photograph had been taken that afternoon.
Jordan recognized his mother’s car.
Maya stood in the kitchen while one officer asked Jordan whether he had enemies at school.
“That’s not what this is,” she said.
The officer looked at her.
“We have to ask.”
Nia intervened.
“Answer the questions. Don’t argue.”
After the officers left, Mr. Mitchell closed every curtain.
Jordan watched him.
“You think Mercer sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else knows?”
“Too many people now.”
Harris had left to meet Nia’s investigator at the storage unit.
Claire wanted Maya to return home with her.
Maya refused at first.
“I’m not running.”
Claire’s answer was firm.
“You’re seventeen. This is not running. This is me doing my job.”
Jordan expected Maya to fight.
Instead she nodded.
Before leaving, she turned to him.
“What are you doing about the college money?”
His father heard.
Jordan looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
Maya lowered her voice.
“Don’t make some dramatic decision because you feel guilty for existing.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Yes, it is.”
He bristled.
“You don’t get to tell me what I feel.”
“No. But I get to tell you I don’t want you throwing away school to prove you’re a better person than your father.”
Mr. Mitchell flinched.
Jordan saw it.
So did Maya.
She immediately looked uncomfortable.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” Mr. Mitchell said.
His voice held no anger.
“And maybe you should.”
Maya left with Claire.
That night, Jordan sat at the kitchen table while his parents argued in the bedroom upstairs.
Their voices were low enough that he could not hear words.
He did not need to.
His mother eventually came downstairs wearing pajamas and carrying a cardboard box.
She sat across from him.
“I want to show you something.”
Inside were seventeen sealed envelopes.
Each had a year written on the front.
All the way to 2025.
Jordan touched the first.
“What are these?”
“Letters.”
“To who?”
His mother looked at him.
“To your sister.”
Jordan’s throat tightened.
“You wrote to her?”
“Every birthday.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dad?”
“I thought he would tell me to stop.”
She smiled faintly.
“Maybe I needed one thing that was mine.”
Jordan picked up the 2016 letter.
“What did you write?”
“I don’t remember every word.”
“Can I read them?”
“They belong to Maya.”
He nodded.
“Did you believe she might be alive?”
His mother’s eyes filled.
“Some years.”
“What does that mean?”
“Some years I believed the hospital. Some years I didn’t. Grief is strange. You can know something and doubt it in the same hour.”
“Why didn’t you investigate?”
“I did.”
Jordan looked up.
“When?”
“2012.”
His mother stared at the envelopes.
“I went to St. Gabriel.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I asked for the maternity records. They told me the chart had been archived. Then Elliot appeared.”
Jordan’s stomach tightened.
“Harris?”
“He said your father had already gone through everything. He said reopening it would destroy us.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
Jordan stared at the seventeen envelopes.
“So both of you had doubts. Neither of you told the other.”
She nodded.
“We were married. We lived in the same house. We slept in the same bed.”
Her voice cracked.
“And we grieved separately because each of us thought silence was protecting the other.”
Jordan looked toward the dark hallway.
“That’s not protection.”
“No.”
She touched the first envelope.
“It’s fear wearing nicer clothes.”
The front door opened.
Mr. Mitchell entered.
Jordan had not realized he had gone outside.
His father carried the mail.
He placed an envelope on the table.
“No return address.”
Mrs. Mitchell stiffened.
Jordan put on gloves from the kitchen drawer before touching it, remembering Nia’s instructions.
Inside was a photocopy of a hospital security log.
One entry was highlighted.
March 19, 2009 — 8:14 a.m.
AUTHORIZED EXIT:
R. BENNETT
INFANT PLACEMENT CASE 09-317B.
Below it, another name appeared under Administrative Override.
ELAINE MERCER.
Mrs. Mitchell whispered, “She was there.”
Jordan kept reading.
At 11:42 a.m., another entry showed:
E. HARRIS — RECORDS OFFICE.
At 12:03:
M. MITCHELL — EXECUTIVE CONFERENCE ROOM.
Jordan looked at his father.
“You were meeting Mercer while Maya was already gone.”
Mr. Mitchell stared at the log.
Then he sat down.
“Yes.”
Jordan’s blood ran cold.
“What happened in that room?”
His father looked at Mrs. Mitchell.
“I’ve never told anyone.”
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The house became silent.
Then he said, “Elaine Mercer offered to get our daughter back.”
